


we can only look behind

by hereforlou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Cheating, Childhood Friends, Coming Out, Drunk Sex, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Growing Up Together, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 65,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24497791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereforlou/pseuds/hereforlou
Summary: His mum said there was no getting an idea out of his head once it was stuck in there and Harry thought she was right. It wasn’t like he did it on purpose - his ideas were just really sticky.(Or, the one where Harry fixates through the years.)
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 84
Kudos: 592
Collections: One Direction Big Bang Round 3





	1. The Coal Bin

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you sososososo much Nic for your wonderful notes and your endless enthusiasm and patience. Thank you Janet for bearing with me until the last minute to write this, for allowing me to change fics halfway through and for the beautiful moodboard! Thank you to the mods for everything, to Shai and Jacky for taking a look at the first chapter a looong time ago, and to everyone who cheered me on. 
> 
> What a time to be trying to write a cute story... I'll admit I felt weird finishing this during the last few weeks, but I hope, if anything, it makes someone happy. 
> 
> **Just to clarify some tags:** bad parenting refers to (fictional) Harry's (fictional) dad, who is a prick in this story. The cheating doesn't happen between H and L but it _does_ involve one of them. Be sure to send me a message if you have any [questions](https://hereforlou.tumblr.com/ask) before reading <3
> 
> Title from _The Circle Game_ by Joni Mitchell.
> 
> Here's a [Tumblr](https://hereforlou.tumblr.com/post/620627959643095041/we-can-only-look-behind-complete-66k-his-mum) post.

Harry’s mum kept telling him not to play near the coal bin.

His mum was always telling him not to climb up high places, or jump into puddles, or run ahead of her on the street. She never let Harry do the stuff he wanted to do with all his heart, like climb over the fence around the Tomlinsons’ yard instead of ducking underneath it, or go swimming in the pond behind their houses. The coal bin wasn’t dangerous — it was only a bin that sat pressed against the side of Harry’s house, towering over Harry and holding a _mystery._

It was green with a black lid. It looked like a little cabin, like one of the three little pigs’ houses, the one made out of wood, only Harry didn’t think anyone would be strong enough to blow it away no matter how hard they tried. It was big enough for Harry to live inside of it, or have as his secret hideout. 

Sometimes, when he fought with his sister or got in trouble with his mum, Harry wished he could run away to the coal bin and hide in it until they noticed he was missing and were really worried about him. He sometimes wished he could bring his pillow and his toys and turn it into a bedroom. He would put a proper door he could reach and invite his friends over. It already had a cat door so Dusty could visit, no problem. 

Harry even had _dreams_ about the coal bin sometimes, about finally looking at what was inside. One time, he dreamt it was filled with sweets, the kind he and Gemma weren’t allowed to eat unless it was someone’s birthday. Maybe that was where his mum hid the lollies and chocolate bars they bought at the market but never saw around the house. Or maybe it was where his mum hid his birthday presents, or the old toys she’d told Harry she had given away to kids who needed them more than him. 

The constant wondering drove Harry crazy, he was just always thinking about it. He’d seen similar bins in other houses — the Tomlinsons had a red plastic one next to their back door — but none as big and perfect as the one in _his_ house. It made Harry feel proud when he walked by it on his way out every morning. They had the prettiest coal bin in the whole village. 

It was not fair, then, that Harry was not allowed near it. His mum didn’t even let him play on that side of the house, saying she didn’t want to have to keep guard like a police-woman because Harry couldn’t be trusted. She said Harry was old enough to know that no means no and that if Mummy said something was dangerous then he better keep his little bum away from it. But his coal bin _wasn’t_ dangerous — how could it be? It was only a big box, it wasn’t made out of knives or fire or had any buttons Harry could accidentally press. His mum was no fun. She treated Harry like a baby. She’d forgotten Harry had turned six already, all the way back in February. It was summer now, Harry was practically six-and-a-half, and big enough to be allowed to play wherever he wanted. 

This was what was going through Harry’s head on the first day of summer holidays. He was kneeling on the bench closest to the window in the kitchen, nose pressed against the glass as he gazed longingly at his beloved coal bin, so lonely and going to waste with no one to play with it. Gemma was sitting next to him, having breakfast and watching the weird old cartoons they played early in the morning on weekdays when they were usually at school. Mum had said no telly before lunch but Gemma never got in trouble like Harry did because she was older and knew how to argue and ask for things without crying. Or that’s what she said, anyway. The volume was really low and she was holding the remote in her hand, ready to push the off button as soon as they heard their mum coming. 

But Harry didn’t care about cartoons that day. He knew he would spend all day at home, without school or schoolwork to keep him from going out into the garden, and the temptation to slip out the back door and to the coal bin was already making him itchy. He’d only woken up a few minutes before and he was already halfway into what his mum called one of his strops, which happened when his chest got too full and his hands wanted to close into fists because he wasn’t getting his way. He could picture summer stretching before him, months of sunny days ahead of him to play and do as he pleased. He pictured himself leader of his own club house, the coal bin turned into a fort, into a castle, into a bunker for soldiers. It just wasn’t _fair._

Harry looked up, nose smushed against the glass. Across the fence that he was not allowed to climb was the Tomlinson house. It was far enough that Harry always got a little tired when he walked over with Gemma, but sometimes they could still hear the new baby crying all the way to where Harry was sitting in the kitchen. Gemma said that was because the wind flew the sound over, and Mum said that that was another reason why he had to play on the other side of the house — the side away from their neighbours _and_ from the coal bin — because his shouts would carry and wake the baby up.

Harry didn’t understand how wind could carry something other than leaves and the clothes hanging to dry on the line outside. He didn’t understand how it could carry something in two directions at once, either, but no one ever explained it to him. Gemma was always telling him he was too daft to understand (he wasn’t!) and his mum said he was too little (he _wasn’t!)._

Sometimes Harry wished for a little brother so that he wouldn't be the smallest in the family anymore. He prayed for one some nights before bed, hands clasped together and eyes screwed shut. A little brother would listen to him and do everything Harry said. They could play together so Harry wouldn’t have to be the knight _and_ the princess _and_ the dragon all at the same time, or they could race each other or play hide and go seek even when Gemma didn’t feel like it. He was even sure his little brother would help him convince his mum to let them play in the coal bin. 

His mind was always wandering back to the coal bin, he just couldn’t help himself. Mum said there was no getting an idea out of his head once it was stuck in there and Harry thought she was right. It wasn’t like he did it on purpose — his ideas were just really, really sticky.

With a weary sigh, he looked down at the bin again. It sat there, sad and alone. 

“Harry, your tea,” Gemma said then, her mouth full, and Harry looked over to see she had eaten most of the biscuits mum had left on the table for them. There was only one left on the Elmo plate. 

Harry turned all the way around with his mouth open in outrage. 

“Gemma!” he yelled, and quickly grabbed the last biscuit and held it to his chest. “You’re supposed to share!”

“And you’re supposed to sit properly at the table,” she said, still watching the telly, using that voice Harry didn’t like, like she was trying to sound like their mum when she wasn’t! She was just a kid, just like him! 

Harry could feel himself starting to cry, could feel it rising up his throat, but he swallowed and swallowed, mouth turned down and vision gone all watery. 

“You’re s-supposed to share,” he said again, hiccuping around the words. Gemma looked at him and huffed, scowling. 

“You don't have to _cry_ about it!”

“I’m not,” Harry mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. It was then he remembered the biscuit he had saved, and he opened his fingers to find it crushed into crumbs. The urge to cry rose again, tears rolling down his cheeks. He knew there were no more biscuits in the house because Mum hadn’t done the shopping yet and Harry hadn’t eaten a single one. Not even a tiny bite.

He heard Gemma giggle.

“Stupid,” she said. “Now you’ve got no biscuit at all.”

“It’s your fault!” Harry cried, feeling the strop coming, filling his chest up and making his face go hot. “You ate them!”

“You weren’t paying attention!”

“You have! To share!” Harry shouted and threw the sweaty clump of crumbs in his hand right at Gemma’s face. She yelped and upset her cup and milky tea went all over the table. 

“Don’t throw things!”

“ _You’re_ the stupid one, you’re _mean_ —”

“What’s going on here?” Mum’s voice came from the door and Harry turned towards it, his nose tingling with tears. “It’s too early for bickering.”

“Gemma ate all the biscuits!” Harry yelled, pointing at the empty plate.

“Harry made a mess!” Gemma shouted at the same time. She wasn’t crying, and that meant grownups paid attention to her and frowned at Harry. Mum did it then, just like Harry knew she would. She turned her angry face his way and Harry sat back on his heels, crossed his arms over his chest, and tried to force his eyes to stop dripping. 

“What’s going on with you, mister?” 

Harry pointed at the empty plate again, opening his eyes big and biting his quivering lip into his mouth to keep it still. But his mum didn’t scold Gemma - she was more concerned with the tea all over the table and the floor and with Harry’s dirty trainers on his seat. Hadn’t she told him not to wear his shoes inside? When Harry tried to argue, inevitably shouting through more tears because he couldn’t help it when no one _understood,_ he was sent to his room. He went upstairs stomping his feet as hard as he could. 

Sometimes Harry got so angry he wanted to run away. Not to the coal bin, not even to the Tomlinsons’, but far away, as far as his dad had gone. So far he wouldn’t be able to visit or ring, ever. Where no one would be able to visit or ring him, either. Gemma was rotten. She was a rotten big sister. She never shared and she told on Harry all the time. She never let Harry choose the channel they would watch or the game they would play, and when he complained that it was _his_ turn, she always changed her mind and didn’t want to play with him anymore, not until Harry promised she could be in charge. 

Harry always, always prefered to play games he didn’t like over having to play by himself. 

If he had a little brother, Harry would never be mean to him. They’d be a team, they’d be two against one and Gemma would _have_ to listen to them. And if she didn’t it’d be okay, because they’d still have each other. 

Harry reached his room and scrubbed his face dry with his sleeve. His bed was still messy and all his stuffed animals had fallen onto the floor during the night. Sniffling, he picked them up and put them under the covers since they were still tired and sleeping on the floor wasn’t good for their backs. When every single one was tucked in, Harry looked around. Normally, he didn’t mind playing in his room. But it was different when he was on time-out — it sucked the fun out of everything. When he was being punished, none of his toys looked appealing and none of his books looked interesting.

He walked towards the window. His room was on the same side of the house as the kitchen, so he could see his neighbours’ house and the land behind it, the road a little ways away. He could see a bicycle and two, three, _four_ footballs on the grass on the other side of the fence. Sometimes Harry found footballs in his garden and tried kicking them back over. He wasn’t very good at making the ball go where he wanted it to with his foot, but he always managed after a few tries. 

There was no one playing outside now, and Harry figured that if _he_ had a little baby in the house he would want to spend a lot of time with them, too. He pressed his ear to the glass and tried to listen for the baby's cries, but all he could hear were birds singing from the treetops and his own shuddery breaths. He couldn’t remember the baby’s name, although he knew she was a girl. Miss Jay had come home a few days ago and the baby that had been in her belly for months and months had been in her arms. Harry saw them from the front garden where he’d been helping his mum water the flowers, and when he waved, Miss Jay smiled and blew him a kiss.

She didn’t come over, and when Harry asked his mum about it, she said the baby was too little to be around lots of people. That’s why Harry couldn’t go bother them, either, she’d said, and Harry had huffed. He wasn’t a _bother._ Miss Jay always said Harry was an angel, and that meant he was good and didn’t cause trouble. Except when he forgot not to shout, but that wasn’t really his fault — sometimes it was the only way to get people to listen to him.

He got bored of staring out the window after a bit, but he was still feeling sad, so he stayed there anyway. The glass fogged up a little more with every one of his breaths. He drew a face over the foggy bit with his finger and traced a V shape between the two dots that were its eyes — it was an angry face. Harry was angry, too. 

He was busy trying to draw a football on the glass when the phone started ringing down in the kitchen and Harry almost forgot himself and ran to get it (he loved to answer the phone and if he didn’t hurry Gemma would get it before him) before he remembered that he was in _jail_. He pressed his whole face against the window until his nose hurt. 

When he heard Gemma running up the stairs a moment later, he looked over his shoulder at the door. Gemma’s room was across the corridor from his, and Harry saw her race inside and close her door with a slam. From downstairs, Mum said something about not slamming the doors and Harry felt a happy little thrill at his sister getting scolded for once. Harry _never_ forgot not to slam his door. After a minute, Gemma appeared again in her going outside clothes. 

“Where’re you going?” Harry asked before she could run downstairs again. 

“To visit baby Charlotte,” she said, grinning. For a second Harry forgot that he was angry and felt excitement build in his tummy — he had _just_ been thinking about the baby and now he remembered her name: _Charlotte._ Harry thought it was a pretty name. Then Gemma’s grin turned mean. “Too bad you’re on time-out.”

“It’s your fault,” Harry said, clenching his fists. He wanted to hit her even if it meant she would hit him back. 

“ _You_ made a mess.”

“You ate all the biscuits!” 

“You—”

“Are you two still bickering?” Mum asked as she appeared behind Gemma. She still looked cross, and Harry faltered for a second, because he actually hated it when his mum got cross with him. But then he saw Gemma sticking her tongue out at him and his temper won out. 

_“She started it!”_ he yelled and he stomped his foot and he grit his teeth and then he was not allowed to visit the baby anymore. Harry could see Gemma making faces at him from behind Mum and he was so, so angry he couldn’t even speak. He was _furious._

“We’ll go to tea and back and I don’t want you to step a foot out of this house, is that understood? You’ll stay in your room until your sister and I come home.” 

Harry didn’t want to listen anymore. Everyone was being horrible today and he wanted to argue but he didn’t want to get into more trouble, so he threw himself face-down on his bed and shut his eyes tight. A moment later he heard steps going down the stairs and Gemma asking if she’d be allowed to hold the baby. She spoke in such a loud voice that Harry knew she was doing it on purpose so that he would hear. Burning in anger, he grabbed his pillow and threw it towards the door as hard as he could. It flopped to the floor with a soft thud. 

Dad would’ve defended him. He always used to take Harry’s side, he always used to say men (him and Harry) were the ones who gave the orders and made the important decisions. They were the bosses. Mum used to get really angry when he said those things, which Harry didn’t like, but he loved the way his dad ruffled his hair and smiled when he called Harry his ‘little man’ and told him to sit next to him on the sofa.

“Us men don’t need to set the table, do we?” he would say and Harry would nod, even though he liked setting the table with Gemma sometimes. And sometimes, Mum would frown and leave them alone. But other times she would march Harry to the dining room and leave him there while she went back for a row. That’s what his dad called it when that happened, “Watch, she’s come back for a row.”

It meant they would argue and tea would be late and Gemma would say it was all Harry’s fault. 

Now Harry wanted to call his dad on the phone and ask him to come rescue him, but he didn’t have the number to his new house. Gemma said Dad hadn’t given them a number on purpose, but Harry didn’t believe that — he was sure Mum was keeping it from him. 

Just when Harry was starting to feel like crying again, there was a bang somewhere in the house and his head snapped up. 

Mum didn’t leave him alone in the house often, but when she did, it was always for a few minutes and Harry was always watching telly so he didn’t really notice. It was quiet in his room, and knowing he was all by himself made him feel small and abandoned. But he was still angry, so he pretended he didn’t want to cry and stood up on his bed with his shoes on. He listened, but couldn’t hear any more noises. He wasn’t staying in his room, time-out didn’t count if he was by himself. And besides, Gemma’d started it. It was all her fault. With this in mind, Harry hopped to the floor, stepped out into the corridor, and stood there, defiant. 

He wasn’t quite sure what to do from there. 

If he had a secret hideout that nobody knew about, he would go there and wait until even Gemma got worried. Or until his dad came back to look for him. Then Harry would pop out of his hiding spot and ask his dad to go away with him forever. He would miss his room and Dusty but he wouldn’t miss _anything else._

(Harry knew that was a lie because his tummy twisted painfully just thinking about it, but he ignored it.)

He was starting to walk down the stairs when a sudden thought struck him. He _did_ have a secret hideout that nobody knew about! Grinning, he hurried down the steps, nearly falling down the last few, and ran to the kitchen. How could he have forgotten about his coal bin? 

The telly was still on in the kitchen, though the volume was on zero. The table was clean and everything was put away, even Harry’s tea that he never got to drink. He let himself be distracted about that for a second — about Gemma probably drinking _his_ tea because _she’d_ spilled hers — before he shook himself out of it. He had more important things to think about. 

Mum had said that he wasn't allowed outside, but Harry was trying really hard not to think about that. Maybe if she hadn’t turned mean Harry wouldn’t have to misbehave. She almost never used to scold him before, but ever since his birthday, ever since she’d had that big, big fight with Harry’s dad, everyone had been acting all wrong. Before, his mum never would have left Harry all alone and gone play with a baby without him. She never would have sent him to his room without letting him finish his breakfast. She had turned bad and Harry never wanted to speak to her again. 

He stood by the back door, unable to bring himself to open it. If he did, the wind might carry the sound of the lock clicking all the way across to the Tomlinson house. He had to be careful, stealthy, like Dusty when she snuck up on Harry when he least expected it.

Slowly, Harry reached for the doorknob and twisted it. The latch barely made a noise. He pulled the door open as quietly as he could, just enough to squeeze himself outside. It was a little cold, and Harry was still wearing his pyjamas, but being out filled him with courage. Just two steps to the side was the coal bin, big and beautiful, the morning sun making the green of its walls look washed out. Sending a wary look towards the Tomlinson house across the grass, Harry walked towards it.

It was a lot taller than he was. If he lifted his arms high, his fingertips barely touched the upper edge. The little cat door on the bottom wasn’t big enough for him to fit and the big lid was at the very top, where Harry couldn’t even see it. He’d have to climb on something.

Excitement fizzled in his belly as he rushed back inside to look for something he could use as a ladder. He was finally going to see what was hidden inside the coal bin. He wasn’t angry anymore — if he hadn’t been put on time-out, he never would have had the chance to explore.

His first instinct was to grab one of the kitchen chairs. Harry knew they used to belong to his nan and they were wood and very heavy. He tried pushing one towards the door but the scraping noise the legs made against the floor stopped him. Mum was always telling him about not scratching up the floors, and even if Harry was planning to live in his coal bin until he was big enough not to be told what to do, he didn’t want her to get even more angry with him. 

He left the chair and looked around. There was the stool he used to reach the sink, but the coal bin was lots taller than that. There was the bench where he sat for breakfast, but it was nailed to the wall under the window and _oh._ Just like that, a new plan formed in Harry’s head. 

He climbed on top of the bench and opened the window. Right underneath him was his coal bin, the lid closed and right where Harry could reach it. Biting down on his tongue, Harry stretched outside and grabbed the handle. It took some pulling for the lid to open, and it slammed closed as soon as Harry let go. He’d have to hold it open in order to get in but it wasn’t heavy at all, so it was okay. He opened it again and tried to look inside. It was dark, his own shadow kept getting in the way and he wasn’t sure how full the bin was, or with what. For a second, Harry hesitated. Maybe he could leave a note for his mum, except that he was a slow speller and he didn’t know how soon she’d be back. He could grab a snack but there was nothing left after Gemma had finished all the biscuits. 

Harry’s anger returned. He’d rather be hungry than see Gemma’s stupid face ever again. If he hid long enough they’d _have_ to ring his dad and then he would surely take Harry away forever.

Harry climbed outside. 

Carefully, he sat on the windowsill and let his legs swing down towards the bin until his feet fell inside. He wasn’t sure how to lower himself without letting go of the lid. He was trying to think of the best way to do it when he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, someone coming out of the Tomlinson house, and he startled so badly that his bum slid off his perch and down he went, tumbling into the bin with a shout. His arm caught on the edge of the opening as he fell, he let go of the lid, and landed on his knees. There was a loud _clang_ when the lid fell into place above him. Everything was very, very dark.

Harry was panting, hands against his chest where his heart was pounding fast, fast, fast. After a moment he became aware of the pain on his arm and on his knees. It was _black_ around him, so dark it felt like he didn’t exist anymore. Harry couldn’t see a thing. He was kneeling on rubbly things like stones, and he couldn’t see and he was hurt and what if something _already lived in there?_

He started crying before he could finish the thought. He was trapped! And his mum didn’t know where he was and he didn’t want to wait until she got back and got worried. He wanted to get out _now._ His cries echoed around him and every time he took in a shaky breath he could smell the inside of the bin — it smelled like sticking his head in the fireplace during summer. 

Blinking in the darkness, Harry looked up towards where the lid was, his only exit. He could see a thin line of sunshine there against the black, and that calmed him a little. His knees hurt a lot, but he got up anyway, sniffling and whimpering, and tried to reach up. It was way too tall and the darkness was making him lose his balance. He wobbled and fell on more rubbly things, and his shoulder hit a wall with a dull thud. 

This time he cried for his mum, so loud his throat ached. 

He was still sprawled there when he heard knocking. A cold finger ran down his spine and all of him seized up in fear. Something _was_ living in the bin. Something was going to eat him and leave nothing behind but his _bones_ for his mum to find. He was so scared he couldn’t even cry anymore, couldn’t scream. His heart was so loud in his ears that it was all he could hear for a few seconds. Then there was another knock, and another, and then, “Harry?” a voice called, muffled and coming from outside.

Harry didn’t immediately recognise it.

“Your mum said to come get you! I saw you fall! Are you alive?” 

At the mention of his mum, Harry felt a lump form in his throat. He wanted his mum and a hug and a kiss, but he also wanted not to get in trouble again and be glared at and sent to his room. 

“Don’t worry, there’s a door!” the voice called and Harry looked up, expecting the lid to open above him, but nothing happened. Instead, he heard a metallic scrape coming from right next to him. Then a tiny window opened close to the ground — the cat door. Sunlight streamed in and Harry could see the inside of the bin for the first time. He saw the wooden walls, not green but normal wood colour, dirty and splintery. He saw the floor and the small piles of black stones scattered around him. 

Only then did it occur to Harry that the coal bin might be full of coal.

Then the light went out again when Louis Tomlinson put his face to the opening.

“Are you there?” His voice was loud inside the bin, it boomed out of Louis, who could only fit half of his face in the door. Harry saw him alternating between the eyes half and the mouth half, calling for Harry before checking if he could see him. 

Louis Tomlinson was Miss Jay’s son. He was big, almost as old as Gemma. He had turned eight right before Christmas last year and, even though Harry had been invited to his party, he had spent all day with Louis’ little cousins because the bigger kids kept playing too rough for him and Harry kept whining to his mum about it. 

His dad had been there, and he’d kept pushing Harry towards the snow fight happening in the garden and telling him to stop acting like a little girl, even after Harry showed him all his scrapes. 

Louis was nice most of the time. When they visited his house, Louis never locked Harry out of his room like Gemma did because she liked to hog her friends and not let Harry play. Louis let Harry sit with him and Gemma when they played games he was too little to understand and let him be on his team, even if he didn’t get to do anything other than sit and not shout. Sometimes Louis forgot to be nice when they played outside, though. He ran too fast for Harry to keep up or forgot Harry was playing hide and go seek with them and went inside to watch a film while Harry waited to be found. But when Miss Jay scolded him, Louis always said it’d been an accident, and Harry believed him. 

He wasn’t rotten like Gemma.

Now Louis was trying his best to peer inside the bin but his face kept blocking the light everytime he got too close. Harry kept getting short glimpses of the inside of the bin before being surrounded by darkness again, lights blinking before his eyes.

“Harry, are you alright?” Louis asked. “If you don’t answer I’ll think you’re hurt.”

“I _am_ hurt,” Harry said. His voice came out wet and small. He wasn’t lying, though. His knees felt scraped bloody and were throbbing, his arm felt hot where he had banged it on the edge on the opening. 

“You’re hurt? I’ll get your mum!”

 _“No!”_ Harry called, tears in his throat and pooling in his eyes. They made his voice come out all wobbly and whiny. He didn’t want to be a baby but— “She’ll be angry again.”

Louis remained where he was. Harry sniffled once, sniffled twice, and then he started crying in earnest again. There wasn’t anything else for him to do. Louis moved away from the little door so that light streamed in again and Harry cried louder, sure that he was about to be tattled on. He’d be on time-out until he turned into an old man.

But then something came through the door — Louis’ hand, dirty palm up. Harry took it and felt Louis’ fingers squeeze around his.

“There, there,” Louis said, his voice muffled again. “Don’t cry, I’ll help you get out of there. In secret.”

“Okay,” Harry mumbled.

“The door’s on the top so I’ll have to climb up something. I’ll get a chair, alright?”

“Okay,” Harry said again. 

“You can take my hand again later.” Harry, who had been squeezing Louis’ hand as hard as he could, let go. He heard a scuffing sound as Louis got up and then the sound of his retreating steps and of the kitchen door opening. 

Louis was gone a long time. In the meantime, the inside of the bin got lighter and lighter until Harry could see enough to realise his dreams of living there would never come true — it wasn’t nearly big enough for Harry’s bed or all of his toys. The little cat door wasn’t even big enough for Dusty, probably, and besides there was coal everywhere and it stained everything black. 

Also, Harry hated the coal bin.

The longer he stayed inside the more he hated it, the more he wanted to get out and never see the stupid thing again in his life. It was supposed to be his special place and it turned out to be dirty and dark and scary instead. Now Louis had been gone forever. Maybe he’d forgotten Harry and was inside watching telly like when they’d played hide and go seek. 

In the dim light, Harry could now see his knees. His pyjama pants were torn and the skin below was split and bleeding. There were little pieces of coal stuck in places and it hurt when Harry tried to pick them off. 

One time when he was little, Harry had fallen on the gravel driveway out front of his house. A million little rocks had dug into his palms, some deep enough to cut. Mum had gotten tweezers and started to pick them out one by one. But then his dad had come into the kitchen, heard Harry whimpering, and grabbed a dishcloth to wipe the rocks off Harry's hands. Then he sent Harry back outside because boys were supposed to fall and get hurt sometimes and not cry about it to their mums.

Harry’d gone over to the fence between his and the Tomlinson house and sat against one of the posts until he’d been called back for tea, stinging hands between his knees. 

He didn’t understand why his dad thought that when boys and girls scraped their palms on gravel it hurt different. 

Suddenly, Harry didn’t want his mum calling his dad to take him away. At least not until he had plasters for his knees and a kiss to make it better. That was something only mums did, as far as he knew. His dad could come for him after he felt a bit better. 

He waited some more, and just as he was starting to get scared again - there was a noise like something was moving that he was sure was coming from inside, coal pieces shifting and rolling down their little piles, maybe something slithering towards him, maybe a claw reaching, a mouth opening, fangs shining and tongue unfurling — he heard Louis outside. 

“I’m back!” he called and Harry perked up. He got on his belly, gingerly so as not to hurt his knees further, and spied out the little cat door. Louis had managed to drag one of the heavy kitchen chairs outside. Harry could see its legs coming closer, followed by Louis’ trainers, the muddy cuffs of his trousers. 

Louis’ clothes were always dirty. Harry always noticed it, the grass stains and the dirt and the stray twigs tangled in his hair. Miss Jay said that there was no point in making Louis take a bath or change his clothes during the day when he’d run outside and make a mess of himself again before his hair was even dry. Even at school, Louis was always covered in something — chalk, marker ink, dust from playing soldier in the playground and dragging himself on his stomach until a teacher told him to stop. Harry saw Louis sometimes at recess, surrounded by friends, hanging from the monkeybars, playing tag with the older kids and zipping past them even though they were bigger.

“I know him, that’s Louis,” Harry would tell his own Year 1 friends, proud of the fact, proud that, if Harry happened to catch Louis’ eye, Louis would smile and wave hello even though Harry was one of the little kids. 

Harry was still lying on his stomach when there was a creak above him and light flooded the inside of the bin, so bright and sudden Harry had to shut his eyes against it. 

“Why’d you hide in here for?” Louis asked from above, but he sounded like he was smiling. When Harry could open his eyes again and looked up, Louis was hanging half inside the bin, his hair swinging downwards. “It smells funny.”

“I fell,” Harry said, only half a lie because even if he had wanted to hide in the bin at first, he’d changed his mind for good now. And besides, he _had_ fallen, he was _hurt_ from it. 

“Your mum said you got in trouble.” Louis swayed by the waist. His face was going red from hanging like that. The lid was resting on his back, letting in a bit of light.

“It’s Gemma’s fault,” Harry said, but the fight had gone out of him. He even missed Gemma, he just wanted to get out. He felt tears gathering in his eyes again.

When Louis realised Harry was starting to cry, he straightened up and reached down with his hands instead. 

“Come on, I’ll help,” he said. 

Sniffling, Harry got on his feet, trying to ignore the sting on his knees, and took Louis’ hands. Louis was bigger than Harry, but he wasn’t big enough to get Harry out by himself. He pulled and pulled, groaned and puffed, but Harry’s feet never left the ground, not even when he tried to make himself as light as he could and stood on the tips of his toes.

“You’ve got to climb the wall,” Louis said, hanging onto Harry’s hands. “Kick, um, kick up from the wall and I’ll pull.”

Harry kicked the wall with a dull _thuck_ and Louis laughed so hard his fingers slipped from Harry’s grip.

“Don’t laugh!” Harry whined, reaching up. 

“Kick from the wall, not _at_ it,” Louis said, still laughing. “Like you’re walking on it. Like you’re Spider-Man!”

Louis took Harry’s hands again and Harry tried planting his feet on the wall like Spider-Man and walking up, but the soles of his shoes kept slipping on the wood and his shoulders were hurting and Louis’ hands were sweating so much it was hard to hold on. Harry let go and, like an explosion, he started crying again, head thrown back, loud enough to be heard three houses over probably. He was never getting out! He was tired and he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet and his knees really, really hurt. Louis was talking but Harry couldn’t hear him over his own sobbing. Then there was a shuffle and something dropped next to Harry before everything went dark again, except for the square of light near the ground. 

Harry stopped mid-wail, voice stuck in his throat. 

“There,” Louis said next to him, slowly becoming more visible as Harry’s eyes adjusted to the dark. He was wearing a white t-shirt so he looked like he was glowing a little bit. “Now I can pick you up and you can get out, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry sniffled.

Louis stood behind Harry and put his arms around his waist. He hoisted him up with a groan.

“You’re heavy,” he breathed, strained.

Louis’ grip was so tight Harry would have lost his biscuits if he’d had any that morning. His face was pressed against Harry’s back and he was bent backwards in order to hold Harry up, and when Harry moved his arms up to reach the lid, they nearly toppled over. 

Louis screamed but he managed to keep his balance.

“Wait, wait!” He put Harry down. “Here, stand on my hands. Hold on to my shoulders.”

Harry watched, as much as he could in the dim, as Louis got onto a crouch and made a seat with his hands on the floor, fingers tangling together. 

“I’ll hurt you,” Harry told him. His eyes felt heavy from crying. He wanted his bed and his stuffed toys and his mum.

“It’s alright, I do this with my mates all the time. Go on.”

Carefully, Harry put a foot on Louis’ hands. He put his own hands on Louis’ shoulders and gripped them tight when Louis told him to hold on. When he felt Louis lifting him up, he tensed his leg out of instinct, and then he was up, nearly banging his head on the ceiling. He used one hand to find the lid and pushed up. It was bright outside, and the smell of grass and summer hit his nose and made him smile. He felt like he’d been inside the bin for years. 

Underneath him, Louis was swaying. 

“Hurry up or I’ll drop you!” he warned and Harry scrambled, finding purchase by gripping the space between two boards and pulling himself up until he was nearly all out, only his dangling legs left inside. Louis pushed them up until Harry could curl into a little ball outside the bin, right on the edge. He could see the kitchen chair Louis had dragged outside just below him, so he turned himself as carefully as he could, and lowered himself onto it, legs wobbling like rubber.

And then he was standing on the chair, just tall enough to open the bin lid again and peer inside. 

“You did it!” Louis cheered from the dark. Harry couldn’t see him. 

“How’re _you_ gonna get out?”

There was a second or two of silence. It didn’t seem like Louis had planned this all the way through. But now Harry was the one with an idea.

“I’ll be right back!” He closed the lid and jumped off the chair. His knees twinged but he ignored it. In the kitchen, he found the stool near the sink and he took it and carried it outside. It took some work, but eventually he managed to hold open the lid and hold the stool just over the edge. Louis’ fingers reached for it and lowered it down into the bin. 

A moment later, his head popped up from the opening. He was smiling big and there was coal dust on his face. 

“I thought I was gonna have to stay there forever,” he said happily. 

The idea alone filled Harry with dread — the bin would _not_ make a good club house, or fort, or bedroom. He didn’t want to think about someone living inside it anymore. 

Louis pulled himself out all the way without Harry’s help, let the lid smack down into place, and then jumped to the floor like a cat, landing in a crouch before standing and brushing the soot off his clothes. He helped Harry off the chair and tugged on his hand. “Come on.”

He started pulling Harry towards the fence and Harry was shaky enough to allow it for a few steps before he stopped dead. 

“No,” he said, voice shaking. He looked down at his torn, dirty pyjamas. Louis looked too, and a little wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows before it smoothed when Louis smiled.

“That’s okay, you can change your clothes and no one’ll know, okay? I won’t tell.”

“Not even Gemma?” Harry asked, fear fading a bit as he got a little excited with the idea of sharing a secret with Louis, a secret that not even _Gemma_ would know about. 

Louis put his hand up.

“Promise.”

Harry smiled. 

His dad wanted him to be friends with Louis because Louis hardly ever cried. Harry had only seen him do it once, when he and Gemma found a dead rabbit near the pond close to their houses. Gemma cried, too, and then Harry when he heard about it even though he hadn’t seen it himself. His dad wasn’t there that day (it was after Harry’s birthday) so he didn’t see Louis’ wet face or the way he kept clutching his chest as if his heart hurt, and he didn’t hear Louis’ trembly voice when he asked his mum if a dog had done that to the rabbit. 

Harry’s dad wanted him to be friends with Louis because Louis was strong and climbed trees and was good at footie and his mum didn’t mind if he got dirty. But Harry wanted to be friends with Louis because he never called Harry names for crying or for being scared. A long time after the day they’d found the rabbit, Harry heard Louis say to Gemma while they were watching _Alice in Wonderland_ , “Remember when we found that bunny behind my house? I cried _loads_. Sometimes I think about him and I get sad all over again.” 

Harry didn’t think Louis even knew boys weren’t supposed to cry. 

“I used to think you were little,” Louis said now as they walked back to Harry’s house, “but now that I’ve got Lottie I know you're not really.”

Harry watched as Louis started to push the kitchen chair they’d abandoned next to the bin towards the door.

“You’re heavy and you’re nearly as tall as me.” Harry went to help him. “It’s weird that you’re the baby brother. You’re not a real baby. You’re a big little brother. Lottie’s a _real_ baby sister.”

“Is she really little?”

“She’s _so_ little,” Louis said, sounding proud. “Mum says she’s the littlest baby she’s ever seen, even littler than I was and she’s seen millions of babies, that’s her job, you know.”

Harry couldn’t imagine Louis being little at all. In his mind, Louis had always looked grownup and big, even though he was quite sure Louis had been Harry’s age once, because Miss Gillian from school used to be his teacher when he was in Year 1. 

“I’ve never met a baby that little,” Harry said. He hadn’t met many babies at all. 

“Well, you’re gonna!”

They managed to push the chair back into the kitchen and Harry chose to ignore the scuffed floor for now. Instead he went upstairs to change. His knees were still sore, so he put on shorts so that the fabric wouldn’t touch them, and a clean shirt. There was a bruise forming on his arm. Harry poked at it a couple of times. Then he bundled his pyjamas into a ball and brought them back to Louis. 

“Hide them in the bin,” Louis told him after a moment of consideration. Harry did. He stuffed them through the cat door and then stood and kicked one of the bin’s green walls as hard as he could. He _hated_ it. It didn’t look beautiful anymore. It looked like an old, dusty box. The red plastic one over at Louis’ house was much prettier and smaller and not at all scary. 

They were about to leave when Louis saw Harry’s knees and steered him back inside and helped him wash in the downstairs toilet, carefully picking the bits of coal off one by one with his fingers. It hurt almost nothing. 

Later, after they’d walked all the way back to Louis’ house and Harry’s mum saw Harry’s scraped knees and made a big fuss over them, kissing Harry’s face and asking Miss Jay for plasters, Harry met baby Lottie and had to agree: she was the littlest baby in the world. Louis was right to be proud of her. 

Miss Jay let Harry hold her before they had to go back home. She was light, tiny like a doll. After the morning he’d had, Harry was exhausted. But he’d fallen into the bin, gotten out and fixed his knees without his mum’s help. Now he was holding a little baby in his arms and Louis (who’d said Harry wasn’t really little, which Harry already knew, because he was six-and-a -half) was stood next to them, keeping watch because he was the big brother. Mum was watching and Gemma was whinging about something while Miss Jay was taking a photo.

Harry smiled at the camera and never felt bigger and stronger in his whole entire life than he did then. Like he could really do _anything._

Back at home, the feeling faded just a little bit. Mum saw the scuffed floor in the kitchen and scolded Harry for it, even though it hadn’t really been him. Then she saw the bruise on Harry’s arm for the first time and got angry when Harry wouldn’t tell her how he’d got it. And then she got _really_ cross when Harry said he couldn’t find his pyjamas. 

“What on earth did you do today after we left?” she asked, hands on her hips. “You were alone for fifteen minutes.”

“Nothing,” Harry mumbled. “I stayed in my room.”

“Oh, I know you didn’t,” his mum said, looking like she knew _everything_. Harry’s heart raced. “We’ll need to have a serious talk about your behaviour. Both of you.” Gemma, who had been eavesdropping from her room, ducked back out of sight. “I won’t have you two brawling all summer long like little cavemen.”

“We could go to camp,” Gemma called.

“You’ll go, next month,” Mum said.

“Why next month?” Harry asked. He liked going to day camp, as long as it wasn’t sleepaway. He’d only gone one summer, last year, and they’d made teams and played games and learned songs with funny dances.

“Because,” Mum said.

Harry was quiet, sitting on his bed in his underpants because his pyjamas were hidden away in the coal bin forever.

“Are we going to see Dad soon?” he asked. Last summer Dad had taken Harry fishing sometimes. It wasn’t very fun, but sometimes they got ice lollies on the way back. Maybe they could do that while they waited to go to camp.

“I don’t know, darling,” Harry’s mum said. “I hope you do.”

Harry didn’t like that his mum didn’t know. He didn’t believe her. Grownups always knew what other grownups were doing, just like they knew each other’s phone numbers and where they were when they weren’t home. But Harry’s mum was always saying ‘I don’t know’ about his dad. She didn’t know where his new house was or when he was coming back or why he’d gone away for so long. 

Except—

The morning of his birthday, Harry had jumped out of bed and raced downstairs as fast as he could. It was his birthday and that meant a special breakfast and maybe a present before his party. He had run and skidded on his socks and then a splinter had gone through the sole of his foot _all_ the way in. It didn’t hurt if he didn’t step on it, but he could _see_ it inside his skin and it made his belly roll. 

Mum had gotten the tin with all her sewing things and taken a needle out and Harry had started screaming. 

He had known, very, very deep down, that screaming and crying would only make everything worse. He had known that his mum wouldn’t make it hurt and that he was being too loud and crying and not acting like he was supposed to but he couldn’t help it. Every time he saw the needle coming near his foot he started again, trying to twist off of his mum’s lap. 

Then his dad had come in, looking angry, and he’d grabbed Harry underneath the arms and lifted him up and shaken him until Harry's teeth rattled and he’d told him to stop acting like a fucking girl. Before Harry could take in a breath or even begin to be shocked at his dad using a bad word directed at him, his mum had taken him back and sat him on her chair and yelled at Dad until Harry’s ears hurt and Dad started yelling back. Gemma watched from the door, her eyes as wide as Harry could feel his own.

Later, Mum took them to Miss Jay to take the splinter out of Harry’s foot and from then on Harry wore his shoes inside the house from the moment he woke up. His dad didn’t stay for the birthday party and Harry didn’t cry about it — Gemma told him that if he did, maybe he would make Mum leave, too.

When Harry asked his mum why his dad had gone away, she always said she didn’t know. But he and Gemma knew. It was because of Harry. He’d done it. If Harry had stayed stuck in the bin, would his dad have come back to look for him? Not if he didn’t like Harry. Not if he’d left because of him. 

When Harry started crying now, sitting on his bed in his underpants, he was quiet. His heart and throat hurt. Tears dripped down his chin onto his thighs while his mum went down to the laundry room for something he could wear to sleep. 

“What’re you crying for now?” Gemma asked from the door. Harry didn’t look at her. He turned and burrowed between the sheets, wet face against his pillow. He heard her come closer and curled himself into a ball. “Your knees hurt?”

Harry shook his head.

“Are you sad about camp?”

“No.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Only a little,” Harry said. His anger had all gone away the moment Louis had appeared to save him, and Harry could never stay cross for long when Gemma was nice to him. 

He felt Gemma getting on the bed behind him.

“Baby Charlotte’s cute,” she said. “Right? She’s so little.”

“She’s the littlest baby in the world,” Harry agreed, thinking of Miss Jay and all the babies she saw everyday and how she’d still said Charlotte was special. 

“You were like that, too.”

Harry smiled through his tears. He felt Gemma lying down behind him and he scooted back so that they were cuddled together. It was his favourite thing, to curl up with his sister or his mum and stay still and safe and warm for a long time. Every time Harry started to think Gemma was too big or too mean to, she surprised him by being the one to hug him first, like she was doing now. She never said sorry unless someone made her, but Harry didn’t mind.

Mum found them like that a while later, and she called them her babies and kissed their faces until they laughed. She didn’t seem angry anymore.

.

Dad didn’t take Harry fishing that summer, and when he finally visited on Harry’s first day of Year 2, Harry hugged him by his new blue car but didn’t ask to be taken away. Mum and Gemma were watching from the door — neither had rushed outside like Harry had. Over at the Tomlinson house, Louis was getting ready to leave, too. Harry could hear his voice, faint in the distance as he shouted his goodbyes. 

“When are you coming back?” Harry asked his dad, looking up at him and holding onto the straps of his rucksack that were digging into his shoulders. His dad looked different. His hair was different and his clothes were different and the face he was making at Harry was different. 

“I’m not, mate,” he said. Harry felt himself flush. He wanted to cry and it filled him with panic. He couldn’t, not now — his dad would never agree to stay if he did.

“Why not?” he asked.

“M’not wanted here anymore. I’m outnumbered.”

Harry didn’t understand what he meant — he was too busy swallowing down tears. His dad put a hand on his head.

“They’ll spoil you here,” he said and Harry blinked up at him, confused and sad and nervous because it was his first day of school on top of everything else and he’d been anxious all week. He wanted to show his dad his new tie, with the new colours. “We’ll be lucky if you don’t turn queer on me. Too many bloody birds… a lad like you oughta remember he’s still the man of the house.”

He ruffled Harry’s hair.

“You’ll remember that?” 

Harry nodded. His dad's hand felt very heavy on his head. 

“Hiya, Harry!” Louis called from afar and Harry turned to see him making his way up the dirt road to their house. His dad’s hand fell away. Louis’ uniform looked proper and clean, better than Harry’s, who’d already tripped and dirtied his trousers when he was running to hug his dad hello. Louis’ tie was yellow — a Year 4 tie like Gemma had worn the year before.

“Harry,” Dad said and Harry turned towards him again. “You’ll remember what I said?”

Harry nodded, already looking back at where Louis had crouched by the side of the road to pick up a long stick. When he got up, Harry could see mud droplets splattered over his neat school jumper. 

“You stick by the Tomlinson boy. He’s a good one, a proper boy,” his dad said just as Louis reached them. He was waving the stick around like a sword, showing off, but Harry wasn’t bothered. Louis was good at everything, even pretend sword fights.

“Hi, Louis,” Harry said.

“Hello.”

“Heading to school?” Dad asked and Louis finally looked away from his stick to tilt his face up. 

“Miss Anne’s driving me ‘cause Mum’s got to stay with Lottie.”

“A girl, then? They’re taking over the castle, aren’t they?”

Louis said nothing and Harry could see he was confused by the furrow of his forehead. Something cold started squirming in his belly. He didn’t know why, but he wanted his dad to go away now, so he and Louis could get in Harry’s car (the same red car they’d always had) and go to school. He didn’t like that Louis was looking at his dad funny, and he didn’t like that his dad was talking to Louis like he was telling him a secret. 

“You’ll look after my boy, won’t you?” Dad asked Louis, nudging Harry’s shoulder. Louis’ face brightened.

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Boys need to look out for each other,” Harry’s dad said and Louis nodded very seriously. “Can’t have my son go soft, can I? I’ve got one daughter already. One’s enough, isn’t it?”

Again, Louis didn’t speak, and Harry didn’t either. He didn’t know why his dad was saying those things to Louis, but the words made him feel funny, like his dad was saying something bad about him even though he didn’t sound mean and he wasn’t lying — Gemma was Harry’s only sister, that meant his dad only had one daughter and one son. Him.

Just then his mum called them over. Louis turned and ran towards her without saying goodbye, calling out a really loud “Good morning!” as he went. Harry started to follow, but his dad grabbed at his rucksack and stopped him. 

“Remember what I said, alright? Stick with the Tomlinson boy and toughen up. You’re the man of the house, _not_ the little sister.”

Harry looked up at him. His dad was so tall Harry had to tilt his head way, way up to see his face. The sun hurt his eyes. 

“You hear what I’m saying?” 

Harry said yes, and then his dad gave him a little push towards where his mum was waiting, and Harry ran there, his bag slamming into his back. His stomach hurt, but it wasn’t because he was nervous about his first day anymore. He was sad he hadn’t gotten to show his dad his new tie, but he was glad that when they rolled down the driveway a few minutes later, the new blue car was gone.


	2. The Sound of Music

There was a bit in  _ The Sound of Music _ where Maria and the children sat on a hill, playing and learning to sing songs for the first time and Louis was sure that was Harry’s favourite part. But there was also a bit where Maria and the kids put on a puppet show, and there’s a baby goat puppet that came on at the end that Harry loved so much he watched it over and over again. There was also a part where the children all fell into the lake and even though their dad was angry at them, he forgave them and they all sang a song together and Maria was allowed to stay at the house. 

Louis knew for a fact that Harry loved all of those bits. 

There were some scary parts as well, stuff that Louis (in his big brother wisdom) thought were too scary for little kids, but Harry had seen the film so many times by then that he knew there was nothing to worry about. In the end, the whole family walked across the mountains and stayed together forever. And then the menu screen would come back on and Harry would scramble for the remote to press play—

“Again?” Louis asked, rolling over onto his back to hang his head over the edge of the bed and nearly kicking Harry in the face. 

“It’s my favourite,” Harry said, as if Louis didn’t know. They’d seen the film at least two million times already and the weekend had just started. Louis liked it, too, but he didn’t need to watch it over and over again. He would be fine watching another film, or playing a game or doing  _ anything _ else. But it had been raining since that morning and Miss Anne had told them to stay inside, and since Louis was a guest, he had to do what Harry wanted. Lottie was taking her nap and Gemma had gone over to a friend’s house for the day, since she’d said there were too many little kids around, as if Louis was one of them. He was only a year younger than her. 

On the telly, the film started again, and Louis groaned and rolled onto his belly. He felt one of his socked feet landing somewhere on Harry, but Harry didn’t complain. 

Louis and Lottie were staying the weekend at Harry’s and Gemma’s because their mum had gone to the hospital to have the baby. Every time Louis remembered that he was going to be a big brother all over again he got a feeling like tickles in his stomach. He’d been secretly hoping for a little brother, but he didn’t mind another sister. Lottie was cute (when she wasn’t going into his side of the room and stealing his stuff) and he quite liked being the oldest and being the one who protected her and taught her things. He was looking forward to doing it again with the new baby, although he kinda wished more boys his own age lived nearby. He liked Harry but he was a bit of a baby sometimes - he was still eight and Louis was almost eleven now. That was a big difference, he thought. Harry was still young enough not to be embarrassed that his favourite film was the same as Louis’ mum’s. 

“Can we watch something else?” Louis asked into the duvet. From the music he could hear, he knew exactly what was happening on the screen: pictures of mountains and forests and the sky. Louis knew them by heart. “Anything else, you can choose.”

“But it’s started already,” Harry complained. “We can watch something else after.”

“But we’ve seen it like five times already!” 

“But—”

“And it’s like four hours long, Harry,” Louis whined, refraining from kicking his feet around so as not to accidentally hit Harry. Nothing would make the afternoon worse than having his only company crying and telling on him. 

Harry was still young enough that he went blubbering to his mum for every little thing that upset him - he hadn’t learned to settle things himself like Louis did with his mates from school. With them, Louis knew parents or teachers should only be involved if it was absolutely necessary, like when Roy fell climbing a tree and bit his tongue and chipped his tooth and there was blood everywhere. And even then they had all hesitated - they weren’t supposed to climb trees when a grownup wasn't there. They were usually fine by themselves, they could referee their own arguments and if someone started pushing someone else, it was their choice if they wanted to push back or take it.

Little kids needed people to defend them from everything; Louis was glad he wasn’t a kid anymore. 

Maria started singing and Louis heard Harry singing along, messing up the words but following the melody, voice going high. Louis laughed into the duvet, he couldn’t help it, but Harry didn’t get angry, he kept singing as if Louis wasn’t even there. 

Harry was quite funny most of the time. He was younger, but he wasn’t shy, and he always wanted to be part of everything. When Gemma was around and Louis inevitably ended up spending more time with her, Harry was always right there, loudly asking to play with them, or go wherever they were going. Gemma was a bit mean sometimes, and it made Louis feel bad for Harry, even when he didn’t want him to tag along, either. Harry usually slowed them down. He tripped a lot, got distracted, he had to wee every ten minutes and, when they went out exploring, his feet always started hurting almost immediately. 

But he was also usually in a happy mood, and sometimes he told them jokes Louis’d never heard before. He put on shows when he was bored, plays with his toys or singing performances where he dressed up in his mum’s clothes and sang made-up songs and made Louis laugh so hard he got the hiccups. Sometimes he even managed to convince them to dance along with him for their mothers, and even Lottie got to jump in with them.

But Harry also usually did whatever Louis and Gemma wanted as long as they let him stay close, so Louis didn’t understand why today  _ he _ was the one begging. 

“Can’t we put on normal telly?” he tried, rolling onto his back again. He was lying sideways on Miss Anne’s big bed, so that he and Harry formed a T with their bodies. Outside it was still raining, and even though it was early afternoon, the light coming from the window was kind of grey and dim. 

On the screen, the nuns were starting to sing about Maria, and Harry was mumbling along. Louis nudged him with his foot. 

“Harry.”

“After,” Harry said. 

This was all Louis’ mum’s fault. A few weeks ago, Harry and Gemma had come over for tea after school and the movie had been playing in the den when they all trampled inside. It was the part with the favourite things song and Harry had been transfixed. He’d stood in the middle of the room in his uniform, watching with his hands tangled together in front of him and wouldn’t move until Louis’ mum told him she could lend him the DVD to take home if he wanted. 

Louis was almost sure Harry had watched the film every single day since.

With an annoyed huff, he sat up and got off the bed. He would find something else to do on his own. He walked towards the door, wondering if he’d be able to sneak into Gemma’s room to grab a game without waking Lottie up.

“Where’re you going?” Harry asked, attention finally pulled from the telly. Louis looked back and found him sitting up, remote in hand and eyes wide and betrayed. 

“Away. I’m bored.”

“But!” 

He didn’t actually follow that with anything (since there was nothing he  _ could _ say, Louis thought) and Louis huffed again and went to walk away.

“Wait!  _ Lou-is!”  _ That was the tone of voice that confirmed to Louis that Harry was still definitely little. He went all whiny and wobbly as if he might cry and all because he didn’t want to watch a stupid film by himself. But he couldn’t  _ force _ Louis to stay. It didn’t matter if he was a guest, Louis didn’t  _ have _ to stay with Harry the whole time. So he acted like he hadn’t heard and walked away, turning quickly towards the stairs and climbing the steps two at a time. 

Harry’s house was really different from his. In Louis’ house, all the rooms were upstairs, including the living room. They had a cellar, the kitchen and dining room on the ground floor, and everything else on the first floor. Louis’ mum said maybe they would turn the living room into Louis’ bedroom soon, so he wouldn’t have to share with Lottie anymore.

Harry’s house had lots of levels, and it was always creaking and groaning. Miss Anne’s bedroom was on the first floor all by itself, and Harry’s and Gemma’s on the second floor, and then there was an extra set of tiny stairs at the end of a hallway that went even higher, but Louis wasn’t sure what was up there. It was always dark in that part of the house, and he’d never seen anyone go there. 

When he was little, Louis used to be scared of the house. It was a lot older than his, and sometimes at night, if he looked at it from his bedroom window, it looked haunted. Like a house out of a scary film. It used to give him bad dreams, sometimes. 

But that was when he was little. He wasn’t scared now - he was even going to stay the night. He’d stayed the night before, but never when his mum was away in the hospital. She was always just across the fence, and she always left a light on for him outside, just because he liked to look out the window and be able to see his house. This time it’d be a little different, but he could do it. He had to be brave for Lottie, after all. And he didn’t want Miss Anne to think he was a baby. 

He stood in the little hallway between Harry’s and Gemma’s rooms. He was bored and he missed his room with his own stuff. He hadn’t brought anything over other than his toothbrush, pyjamas and a Harry Potter VHS, and he knew for a fact the best games were in Gemma’s room, where Lottie was napping. Louis always got in trouble when he accidentally woke Lottie up, so he tiptoed to the door and tried to open it without making a sound, imagining he was a ninja who would crawl inside and roll to the wardrobe with all the games without being seen, when there was a huge rumble and a  _ crash _ and he jumped nearly out of his socks. 

Louis’ hands flew to his ears, his heart beating really fast, and he waited to see if the thunder had woken Lottie up. Instead of hearing her crying, though, he heard steps running up towards him, and then Harry was coming around the hallway, his own hands over his ears as well. He was frowning like he was angry, but he still came so close they touched shoulders. 

“What happened to your film?” Louis asked, being a little mean, but he was angry, too. 

“I don’t like storms,” was Harry’s reply and Louis rolled his eyes.  _ He _ didn’t like storms either, but he was old enough to know to keep that to himself. Harry was always saying things that made him seem like a big baby. 

“Go look for your mum, then,” Louis told him. He stepped back towards Gemma’s door and uncovered one ear to press it against the wood. All he could hear was the rain outside. 

“I don’t need my mum,” Harry said, and then came to stand next to Louis and pressed his own ear to the door. “What’re you doing?”

Louis debated with himself whether to answer or not. On the one hand, he was cross and wanted Harry to know it. On the other, Harry was only little, and Louis felt bad being mean when Harry looked up at him like he was doing then, as if he’d forgotten Louis had left him alone with his film. 

He sighed.

“I’m checking Lottie’s asleep so I can go and grab a game.”

“I’ve got lots of games in my room,” Harry said, only he forgot to make his voice a whisper like Louis and Louis had to shush him.

“They’re little kid games.”

“They’re not!”

Louis shushed him again.

“We’ve done what  _ you _ wanted all day, I want a turn now.”

“But Mum said not to go in there, and  _ Gemma _ said not to go in there, so we should—”

“That’s why we’ll go in secret,” Louis explained, making his voice even quieter. There was a flash of lightning outside and Harry startled, hurrying to cover his ears properly again. 

When the thunder came, Louis did his best to seem like he wasn’t bothered. 

“We can grab Operation and I’ll let you play,” he offered, and Harry’s eyes went wide. Gemma never let him play because he was horrible at it and the board did nothing but buzz obnoxiously when it was his turn. Besides, he  _ always _ wanted do-overs and got whiny when they didn’t give him any. 

Louis wasn’t really planning on playing Operation — he wanted to play ninjas and roll into Gemma’s room without making a sound. He leaned in close.

“We’ll go in real quiet and we win if we don’t wake Lottie up. We’ll go in on our bellies and we’ve got to stay hidden the whole time.”

“Like ghosts?”

Oh, Louis didn’t want to think about ghosts while in Harry’s scary house.

“Yeah, like ghosts. Or  _ ninjas.” _

“Ghost ninjas.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Alright, but we’ll need white sheets and—” Louis put his hand over Harry’s mouth.

“We don’t need to dress up, Harry.”

Harry’s forehead wrinkled with his frown, but Louis didn’t give in. He stayed there covering Harry’s mouth until he felt a big exhale against his palm and a muffled ‘ _ fine’.  _ Then he let go.

“No talking,” Louis warned, holding a finger up. Harry nodded and Louis finally pushed the door open. 

It was pitch black inside the room, the curtains drawn shut, though it wouldn’t have made a difference if they hadn’t been, since it was dark as night outside. Louis knew Lottie was sleeping on Gemma’s bed on one end of the room, and that the cupboard with the games was on the other side. He crouched down and pulled on Harry’s jeans to get him to do the same. 

“Follow me,” he whispered, and did a barrel roll into the room, then another. He heard Harry copying him, clumsily spilling on the floor after the second one. He never took his shoes off, so his feet sounded really loud hitting the ground. Louis got on his belly and dragged himself forward, the old wooden floor a little scratchy on his hands and pulling on his clothes. At least it wasn’t carpet like in his house - that burned bad when Louis did stuff like this. 

Once he’d made some progress, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he could see Harry gingerly making his way forward on his hands and knees instead of playing properly, but Louis didn’t want to risk telling him off. There was the sound of far away thunder and of rain hitting the side of the house, he didn’t want their voices getting louder than all that.

He faced ahead again and pulled himself forward. It was slow going, and his arms got tired fast. Gemma’s room was bigger than he’d thought. 

Just as he was thinking he should do another barrel roll, his head struck something with a  _ thuk _ that he felt down to his knees. 

Tears climbed up his throat but he swallowed them down, clutching at his head and flopping to the side dramatically. He was biting his tongue hard to keep from making a sound, worried that the noise of his head against whatever  _ that _ had been was enough to wake Lottie up. He wasn’t losing against Harry.

“Are you okay?” Harry whispered, hovering over him. “Do I call my mum?”

“No,” Louis managed. “No mums.” He rolled onto his stomach again and looked. He’d hit a low shelf right next to the cupboard. It stung as if it should be bleeding, but his hand came back dry when he patted the bump he knew he’d have in a few minutes. At least they were almost there.

He was about to say just that when the loudest thunder yet crashed down around them, making the whole house tremble. Just then, the faint light that had been coming from the hallway went out. 

Fear made Louis’ fingertips tingle, but he stayed where he was, pressed against the floor. Harry had curled into a ball next to him, but he didn’t seem to be crying. Lottie was, though.

Before Louis could decide to get up and get her, he heard Miss Anne climbing the stairs and his body moved on his own. He jumped up, grabbed at Harry’s shirt, and pulled him towards the cupboard. 

There was a tiny space between it and the wall, and Louis wedged himself and Harry there, making shushing noises when Harry started to complain. They fit side by side in the tiny space, their knees up to their chins and their hands crammed between their thighs and chests. Louis was still trying to scooch further back when Miss Anne came in holding a torch. 

Lottie cried louder, and Miss Anne cooed at her as she picked her up. 

“It’s just a storm, darling, just a storm,” she was saying. “Let’s go have a snack, yes? Let’s find the boys and have a snack.”

Suddenly, the game changed: they needed to stay hidden from Miss Anne for as long as possible. Louis tried to communicate this to Harry, who was already trying to climb out of their hiding spot at the mention of snacks. Louis pushed against him and held him where he was. 

_ “Louis, _ don—” Harry started, but Louis shushed him. 

Miss Anne was using the torch to look around. The beam of light went right where Louis and Harry were hiding but Louis closed his eyes, so he didn’t know if they’d been discovered. 

“Well, I do wonder where they are,” Miss Anne said in a loud voice. Lottie wasn’t crying anymore. “I hope they’re careful with the  _ power out,  _ since it’s _ very dark.  _ We’ll be in the  _ kitchen, _ won’t we, sweetheart?”

Louis and Harry stayed very still and quiet until she left, taking the light with her. Once Louis heard her walking down the stairs - the old steps made a lot of noise - he eased off Harry. 

“It’s like my film,” Harry said before Louis could tell him of his new plan. 

“Huh?”

“When they’re hiding at the end.”

Louis thought about it and Harry was right. It  _ was _ just like the film. He grinned.

“Yeah, I’ll be the Captain—”

“Why?”

“I’m the oldest,” Louis explained, quite reasonably, he thought. “You can be one of the kids.”

Harry pouted, and when he spoke his voice wasn’t a whisper anymore. “I don't wanna be the kids,” he said. 

Louis could tell he needed to reach a compromise before Harry got upset and he got told on, and then it’d be back to sitting quietly and being bored for hours and hours. With the electricity off, watching telly wouldn’t even be an option anymore. 

“Well, you can be the girl’s boyfriend.”

“He’s a bad guy!” 

Ugh,  _ this _ was why Louis preferred to play with kids his age. He threw his arms out.

“Fine! Be Maria then!” Annoyed, he started to wiggle out of their hiding spot. He expected Harry to be outraged at the idea alone, and Louis was fully prepared to be the grownup and give up his rightful title as the Captain (he really, really wanted to be the Captain, though) when Harry spoke again.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “Okay. She’s got short hair, anyway, so it’s fine.”

“Really?” asked Louis, halfway unstuck. He looked back at Harry, who was touching the little hairs curling over his temple.

A few weekends before, Harry and Gemma had gone away to stay at their dad’s house. Louis remembered a little of when they all lived together, but not much. He barely remembered what Harry’s dad looked like, because he never came to this house anymore. So Harry and Gemma had gone away for a few days, and when they came back, Harry’s hair had been shorned off. 

Louis hadn’t been there when they came back - he’d stayed the night at Roy’s house and they had camped out in the field and ate jaffa cakes inside their tent - but he had heard his mum call Harry a ‘poor thing’ when she was chatting with Miss Anne about it, so he knew she felt sorry for him. Later, he’d asked Harry why he’d cut his hair. Louis had been tempted to do the same to his hair with Mark’s clippers a few times, just to see, but his mum loved his hair too much and Louis didn’t want her to cry. She cried a lot when she was pregnant, Louis had noticed.

Harry said he’d gotten a comb stuck in it and his dad had to cut it all off. He hadn’t looked like a ‘poor thing’ to Louis - he only looked a little embarrassed. He  _ did _ look weird with no hair, but it had grown quite a bit now, and Louis was used to it.

“Yeah, I’ll be Maria,” Harry said. “But  _ I’m _ not a girl. It’s just pretend. I’m a boy, okay?”

“Alright,” Louis agreed quickly - he wasn’t about to argue, even if none of his mates from school would have ever agreed to play the girl. Well, they wouldn’t even really play pretend with Louis anymore. This was the sort of game that only happened at Harry’s house, with no one around to mock them. “But no costumes.”

Harry frowned again, but nodded.

“So, since we’re running from the bad guys, we’re supposed to go to the mountains.”

“We can’t go outside.”

“I  _ know, _ we’ll just make something inside the mountains, but we have to start from downstairs and climb.”

“Like the song.”

Louis sighed.

.

Near the end of  _ The Sound of Music, _ Maria, the Captain and the children run away in a car and suddenly, they’re in the mountains and they’re free. It’s sunny and there’s music during that bit, and everyone is happy and smiling. This was already difficult enough to imagine with the storm going on outside, but Harry’s creepy, scary house was making it worse. Louis was usually quite good at playing pretend. He could turn any boring old room into whatever he wished to in his head. His mum said he had a really big imagination, but somehow, it wasn’t working like he wanted it to here. 

Instead of seeing Harry’s house as the place where the family hid from the police, he was just imagining Harry’s house, only scarier than it really was. With no light on, every shadow seemed to have eyes, and every piece of furniture seemed to be someone looming. 

The worst part was that Harry - little, scaredy Harry - was perfectly fine playing Maria and hurrying from one gloomy room to another, listening as Miss Anne talked to Lottie in the kitchen. 

They had made a plan: they needed to run past every room in each level without being seen before going up each set of stairs, and even though this wasn’t a win/lose game, Louis still felt like he was losing. 

He ran after Harry, focusing on the back of his Donald Duck shirt instead of what was around them, and tried to think how to gain control of the game again. He was the Captain, he was the  _ dad,  _ he should be the one running in front.

_ “Harry,” _ he hissed, and saw Harry trip as he turned around without stopping. He stumbled against a dining chair, making enough noise Louis was sure they were about to get caught. But Miss Anne’s voice went on in the kitchen, and she didn’t call out to them. “Here.”

Louis steered them towards a corner in the front hall, right where the stairs began, just to be the one making decisions for a moment. Harry followed without protest, falling behind Louis and grabbing at his arm. 

“We’ve got to start climbing now,” Louis said, and crawled up the stairs on all fours, going as fast as he could. 

He heard Harry following, his shoes loud on the creaky steps, but there was no arguing with Harry about his shoes, so Louis didn’t even try.

They reached the first floor landing and went from room to room in the dark, cowering in corners against the walls, going under Miss Anne’s bed and inside the bath to peer over the edge and check if the coast was clear. The rain was still loud, and lightning still flashed from time to time, but the more they played, the more Louis forgot where he really was. He was Captain von Trapp and he was escaping the police, and he held Maria’s hand in his as they climbed up hills and stumbled and nearly fell and saved each other. 

Harry’s room was another hiding spot, and then Gemma’s and the tiny loo in the hallway. And then Harry was pulling him towards the last set of stairs and Louis dug his heels in. 

“Come on, we’re almost there,” Harry said, forgetting to whisper, his face all flushed from running around. 

“What’s there?” Louis asked, allowing Harry to pull him only two steps before stopping again. The staircase looked darker than usual - Louis couldn’t even see the door he knew was at the top. 

“The top of the mountain,” Harry said. “And then we win.”

“But what’s there for real?”

“The attic,” Harry said.

They had a basement in Louis’ house, but no attic. He’d seen them on the telly, though, and they always looked scary and covered in spiderwebs and old boxes. He was curious, but a tiny part of him was scared the spiderwebs might come with giant spiders, or that the old boxes were hiding stuff that could grab at them.

Harry didn’t look scared. He was pulling Louis up the tiny stairs as if he went into the attic everyday, even though Louis had never heard him talk about it before. The old steps got narrower as they climbed, and Louis squeezed Harry’s hand hard in case he slipped and fell backwards. 

Harry opened the door at the top and Louis looked over his shoulder at the room beyond. 

“Okay, we win, let’s go back,” he tried, starting down the steps again.

“No, we have to go inside to win,” Harry argued and held him where he was. Their palms were sweaty from being clutched together as they ran all over the house, so Louis slipped away easily. 

“No, we don’t. Why would we need to go into an attic, they never got in an attic in the film.”

“It’s pretend,” Harry said, and the way he said bothered Louis. He was acting like the oldest even if his idea was the stupidest. 

“I know it’s pretend but this can be the top of the mountain.”

“But we need to go over to the other country. Mum says they run away to another country in the film, to hide from the bad guys. We can’t just stay at the top of the mountain, we’ll freeze.”

Okay, Harry made sense. Louis could see how the attic could easily be another country - it was a strange, never explored place. He still preferred they went in there when the lights came back.

“Lottie might need me,” Louis said. Lottie followed him everywhere, she was surely missing him by then. It was his job to go back down to the kitchen and see her.

“It’s not scary in there, promise,” Harry said, and Louis’ shoulder went up.

“I’m  _ not _ scared.”

“It’s—”

_ “I’m _ not the one that’s always crying all over the place. I’m not scared of an  _ attic. _ It’s just a  _ room.” _

“I’m  _ not _ always—”

“You go in there if you’re so brave, bet you there’s spiders as big as Lottie.”

Harry glared down at him from the top step, his forehead all furrowed and his chin all dimpled as it got when he cried. Louis was almost anticipating tears - that way Miss Anne would call them down and they’d forget all about this game. 

Instead of crying, Harry turned around and went into the attic. 

Louis’ heart stopped - he’d feel guilty if Harry got bitten by a spider, even though he’d  _ said _ they should go downstairs and Harry hadn’t listened. 

“See, it’s not scary,” Harry said from across the doorway.

“I said I’m not scared.”

Harry went further inside. Louis stood where he was, wringing his hands together and trying to listen to what Harry was doing. He kind of wanted to see what a real attic looked like, but he didn’t want to give in to Harry and make him think he was the boss. Louis was oldest.

Thunder crashed nearby, and it sounded louder all the way at the top of Harry’s house. Louis covered his ears, but not before he heard Harry crying out.

Louis climbed the last few steps and peered inside. The attic was completely empty. It was just a big empty room with windows with no curtains on them and old, wooden floors and walls and ceiling.

Harry was curled up right in the middle of it, fingers in his ears.

“Who’s scared now?” Louis called from the door.

He heard Harry yelling at him to shut up before his voice went high on a tiny scream when more thunder rumbled outside. The rain sounded really loud up here, like closing your eyes under the shower spray. It was also colder now that Louis dared to walk all the way in, but not as scary as he’d thought. He wanted to explore, but Harry looked too small where he was all folded into a ball on the floor, and it made Louis think of Lottie and his new baby sister. He went and kneeled next to Harry and patted his back.

“It’s okay if you're scared,” he said.

“You’re scared, too,” Harry mumbled. 

“I’m  _ not,” _ Louis sighed. Harry was annoying sometimes, but it was fine, because all little kids were annoying sometimes. Louis had learned that by being a big brother, and his mum had told him that being annoyed with someone didn’t mean you loved them any less. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to  _ love _ Harry, since they weren’t brothers and they didn’t hug and all of that, but he liked him enough not to want him to be scared.

“Listen, Harry, look,” he poked Harry’s side until he looked up, still frowning. “It’s like your film, yeah?”

“What is?”

“The thunder, remember?”

Harry rested his cheek on his knees and his forehead smoothed out. 

“Told you you were one of the kids,” Louis said. Harry instantly frowned again.

Louis’ mum also told him that he had a big mouth, which meant that he didn’t know when not to say what he was thinking and  _ not _ that he could eat a whole sandwich in one bite, like he thought when he was younger. 

“I mean, in the film they’re scared and Maria isn’t. Even the older ones. So, if you’re Maria you’re not allowed to be scared.”

Harry looked at him as if he was trying to figure out if Louis was trying to trick him. Louis tried to look trustworthy, opening his eyes really big like when he tried to get Lottie to give him back one of his toys by telling her she didn’t really want it. 

“You’re not allowed to tell me I’m not allowed.”

Sometimes Harry was impossible. Louis felt quite grown-up thinking that. Harry was usually fun but when he got stroppy like this it made Louis want to leave him and go be by himself. 

“You could sing the song,” Louis told him, because he hadn’t yet given up on the game, and Harry finally smiled. He really liked it when he got to sing or dance or tell stories in front of people. 

Louis listened to Harry sing the song (even though he didn’t know all the words and it wasn’t Louis’ favourite - he liked the one with the puppets) and then they explored the attic, still playing Captain and Maria, though now they were detectives and they were the ones looking for someone who was hiding. 

They got hungry eventually, and went down to the kitchen just as the lights flickered back on. It was still raining outside and Miss Anne made mashed potatoes and roast and they were allowed to put on Louis’ video that he’d brought from home in the kitchen telly while they ate. Harry didn’t like Louis’ film as much but he did say he liked that he would be the boss if they ever played  _ Harry Potter _ because they had the same name. 

Right before bed, the phone rang. It was Mark, and he told Louis that his little sister had been born. 

“Really?!” asked Louis, so happy so suddenly that he nearly started crying. Harry was watching him, though, so he turned around and rubbed his eyes dry. “Can I come over?”

“I’ll pick you kids up tomorrow, alright? Your mum needs to rest. Kiss Lottie for me.”

Louis wanted to tell Mark to kiss the new baby for him, too, but it made him embarrassed that Harry and Miss Anne were so close and listening. When he hung up, Miss Anne hugged him and told him congratulations. Louis was smiling so big his cheeks hurt. 

Lottie went to sleep in Gemma’s room again, and him and Harry put Harry’s mattress on the floor in his room and tried to build a fort with all of Harry’s blankets and pillows. It was a little crooked, but it looked cool inside with the torch they’d borrowed from Miss Anne pointed at the ceiling. 

Louis had never felt less like going to sleep.

Harry was quiet next to him, curled on his side. Louis was staring at the blankets sagging above them, willing the hours to pass so it would be tomorrow soon. He wanted to fall asleep fast so that he would open his eyes and it’d be morning, but nothing was working.

“Louis,” Harry whispered next to him after Louis had counted to a hundred in his head three times. “Are you awake?”

Louis turned to look and saw that Harry had his eyes closed.

“Yeah.”

“Are you excited about the baby?”

“Yeah.”

“I wish my mum would have a baby, too.”

Louis was about to reply that you needed a dad for that, but he bit his tongue just in time. He could feel it would be the wrong thing to say even without his mum there to scold him. 

When he was little, Louis had gotten in trouble with a football and a neighbour’s window and then he’d heard the neighbour talking to his mum about kids needing both parents in the house. It had been a long time ago, back when they’d lived only the two of them together, and Louis remembered his mum getting angry, but maybe the neighbour had been right. Maybe Harry missed his dad. 

Gemma had told Louis once that she was happy her parents were getting divorced. Louis remembered well because he’d gone to his mum afterwards to ask her if she and his dad were divorced and she’d said no, because they hadn’t gotten married in the first place. She  _ had _ married Mark, though. Louis had been ring bearer. 

He thought he wouldn’t be happy if his mum got divorced now, so Harry probably wasn’t either, even though it had happened forever ago. Louis should just not mention dads at all, he thought. 

“Maybe she will someday,” he said instead. “You wanna be a big brother?”

“I just want this but always.”

Louis frowned.

“Huh?”

“Playing and building forts like with you, but everyday, not just sometimes. If my mum had a baby it’d live here with us all the time.”

Louis knew Gemma probably didn’t play with Harry much anymore, what with being in Year 7 and all. Louis, though, did this kind of thing with his mates all the time.

Not the playing Captain and Maria bit, but building forts and watching films together. He and Roy had a secret base in the field behind Roy’s house, and they had buried treasure there as well last summer.

“Who’s your best mate?” he asked Harry, who opened his eyes to meet Louis’.

“You are,” he said. 

“I mean at school.”

“You.”

Louis made a face and propped himself up on his elbow, pulling on the blankets covering them. 

“I’m not even in your year.”

“So? You’re in my  _ school.  _ And you live next door.” Louis was shocked.

“I can’t have a Year 4 as a best mate! That’s like if Lottie was your best mate.” 

“I’m not a baby!”

“You’re more a baby than me!”

As if to prove Louis right, Harry started crying. Louis huffed — they’d actually gone the whole day avoiding this. At least he didn’t cry loud like he used to. He just pushed his face against his pillow and his shoulders started shaking. Louis tried to be reasonable.

“Harry, I already have a best mate. I can’t have another one, that’s just how it works.”

That seemed to make Harry more upset. He gulped a big, shaky breath and hid under the covers, whimpering the whole time. Louis lay back down and went back to staring at the ceiling while Harry sobbed next to him. 

Louis was used to crying — he had a two-year-old sister who liked to get in trouble. Soon he’ll have a zero-year-old in the house as well, and he knew little babies cried especially loud and long. Harry was crying like an older boy — quiet and hidden and without calling his mum. 

It was the first time Louis was actually aware of Harry doing something more grown-up. Even if he was still crying about something silly. 

Louis didn’t make the rules. Harry should understand that. 

“Harry,” Louis said a few minutes later, when it seemed as if Harry would never stop. “Harry, listen.”

He moved the covers away and Harry rolled onto his other side, giving his back to Louis. With his hair so short, his ears stuck out. The one not pressed into the pillow was bright red from crying, and Louis knew Harry’s cheeks would be the same. 

He poked Harry on the back of the head and then patted him, trying to calm him down. He remembered his mum saying Harry looked like a baby duckling with his hair so short. Louis wasn’t sure about that, but it sure made Harry’s head really soft. It felt nice to the touch, and eventually Harry stopped crying so hard and started taking stuttery breaths instead, pushing his head into Louis’ hand. 

“Listen,” Louis said again. “I’ve got an idea.”

“What?”

“I’ll let you be my best mate, only in secret.”

“How?” 

“We’ll be best mates, but if someone asks, I’ll say Roy’s my best mate, ‘cause he is. At school. But here I can be yours. Sounds good?”

Harry turned his head to look at Louis, biting his lips into his mouth. His eyes were really red, and his face was still wet. 

“Can I say you’re mine?”

Louis thought about it. There was no chance one of the lads from school would ever ask Harry anything like that. Only mums asked that sort of thing. 

“Yeah, you can do that.”

Harry’s smile was small. It made Louis’ chest hurt with guilt. Somehow he got the feeling he would get in trouble if his mum heard him. He was trying to be nice, but he felt like he was being mean and he wasn’t sure why. Sometimes Harry looked at Louis with eyes that were  _ too _ big. It made Louis feel funny in a way he didn’t like. Uncomfortable. It made Louis want to push Harry away and force him to stop and not let anyone else see the way his face could look so weird and silly. 

“I wish you lived here,” Harry said. “We could share my room.”

“But I like my room.”

“Yeah, I just wish.” Harry shrugged his shoulders. Lying down, it looked weird, and it made Harry seem even younger to Louis. Maybe it was because Harry still looked a little pitiful with sticky cheeks and sticky-out ears. “Or we could trade you for Gemma. Then all the girls’d be in one house and all the boys’d be here.”

“Your mum’s a girl,” Louis said and Harry rolled his eyes. He reminded Louis of Gemma when he did. “You’d have to bring Mark and your dad here.”

Louis wanted to take the words back as soon as he said them. He’d forgotten he wasn’t supposed to mention Harry’s dad. But Harry didn’t look upset at all. He made a face and shook his head.

“No, I don’t mean mums and dads.”

“Well, I want to live with my mum and my baby sisters.”

Harry was quiet for a bit. He sniffed a couple of times, and rubbed his sleeve over his face, and they lay there listening to the rain. 

“I’ll tell you a secret, since we’re secret best mates,” Harry said all of a sudden, right when Louis’ eyes had started to feel heavy. 

“Alright.”

“Then you can tell me a secret. Okay?” 

“Okay.”

“My secret...is that it’s Gemma’s fault I got my hair cut, but she made me promise not to tell because she’d get in trouble with Mum. So that’s why I wanna trade her for you.”

“Did she cut your hair?” asked Louis, confused. Maybe she’d taken their dad’s clippers and gone after Harry. 

One time him and Harry had found a bunch of earthworms outside after it had rained and they’d put them in a little plastic bucket and thrown it at Gemma just because it was fun to make her screech. It had been Louis’ idea, but afterwards Gemma had only chased Harry around until she’d gotten him trapped near the fence between their houses and had made him fall in a big mud puddle. Harry had been brown from head to toe, mud had gone up his nose and through his trousers and he’d cried. Louis had laughed, but he’d been a little scared of how angry Gemma had gotten. He didn’t want to be chased like that.

Before Louis could start to imagine what Harry could have done to make Gemma go after his hair, though, Harry was shaking his head. 

“I wanted to practise braids like they have in my film, and she said okay only if she could practise on  _ my _ hair after.” 

Louis squinted, trying to make out what Harry was saying.

“So?”

“So my dad shaved them off, but it was Gemma’s fault.”

Braids weren’t permanent as far as Louis knew, there was no need to shave them. He wasn’t sure what was so wrong with practising. Gemma had practised with  _ Louis’ _ hair before, and no one had scolded them. Maybe she’d done such a shoddy job of them that they couldn’t undo them afterwards, and that was why they’d had to cut them off. 

“I didn’t tell anyone, only you.”

“Okay.”

“Gemma’s always getting me in trouble, that’s why I don’t want an older sister, I want a baby.”

“Babies are trouble sometimes, too.”

Then Harry said, “My dad’s having a baby.”

“What?” Louis sat up a little. Men couldn't have  _ babies. _

“His wife is. It’s a secret, too. I heard him when I was supposed to be sleeping. I hid outside his room and heard it, the day he cut my hair. After.”

“Oh.” Louis paused, still surprised. “So...you’ll have a baby brother or sister? Just like you wanted!”

Harry burst into tears. 

It was so sudden Louis sat all the way up, alarmed. Harry was covering his face with his hands and he was breathing in big, heaving sobs. It was a different sort of crying, not the crying Harry did when he was being a little kid, or the crying he was doing before. It scared Louis enough he thought he should call Miss Anne himself. 

“Don’t cry, don’t cry! What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to pry Harry’s hands off his face. They looked like little claws. The sight made Louis’ stomach start hurting with worry. “Harry,  _ stop.” _

Gradually, Harry stopped. He was still upset, but his chest wasn’t jerking anymore, and his hands flopped to his sides, tears still running down his temples into the pillow. 

“You’ll get a baby in your family. Aren’t you happy?” Louis asked, kneeling over him. 

“Dunno.”

“Why are you crying?” Louis asked, a little more anxiously.

“Don’t know,” Harry sniffed.

“Little sisters are fun. I promise.”

“M’dad wants a boy.”

“That’s still fun! You’re like my little brother sometimes and we have fun.”

“Brothers and sisters live together.”

“Um—”

“He’ll forget about me.”

“Who?”

“He said he’ll finally have a boy. He said it because he doesn’t remember me ‘cause we don’t live in the same house anymore,” Harry said in a rush before he started crying again, teeth clenched and eyes screwed shut. Louis didn’t know how to make it better. He wasn’t sure how everything had suddenly turned so sad when the day had been so fun. 

“He made a mistake, Harry. I bet you heard wrong. You were right there! He remembers you!”

Harry didn’t reply, and so they lay in the mattress listening to the rain and Harry’s little whimpers. Louis felt terrible - this was his fault. He and his big mouth. He wanted to be in his house with his mum. 

After a little while, he turned and saw that Harry had calmed down. His eyes were open but dry. 

“Harry,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.”

Harry turned to him. 

“You can practise braids on my hair and that can be my secret for you. We won’t tell anyone, not even Gemma. Okay?”

“Okay,” Harry said in a quiet voice. 

He wasn’t very good at braiding, and Louis’ hair was too soft and slimy to hold in place, but by the time they finally went to sleep the rain had stopped and the sky was starting to turn that odd blue colour it got right before the sun came up. 

Louis slept all the way to the hospital after Mark picked him and Lottie up, and woke up properly when they went into his mum’s room. The new baby was there, and she was even littler than Louis remembered Lottie being. 

Seeing her made Louis think of the night before, and of Harry being sad, and how they should have sung the favourite things song together to cheer him up but Louis hadn’t thought of it at the time. 

And then the baby spit up and Lottie knocked over the lamp next to the bed and started crying, and it was so loud that Louis forgot anything outside the room existed for a while.


	3. Boyfriends, Girlfriends and Taekwondo

It took three tries for Harry to win his yellow belt. The first time, he didn’t get enough points to pass, since he messed up his sparring pattern, and tripped on the other kid doing the test with him, and when it came to hitting the board, he chickened out at the last moment and didn’t hit it very hard at all. He was the only one in his group not to pass, and he couldn’t look up from his lap as they called out the results.

The second time, he missed the board with his foot every time. He stood in the correct position, and he shouted like he was supposed to, but his foot just didn’t want to connect. They gave him a second chance, and when he kicked the examiner instead of the board, he refused to try again. 

The third time, his dad said he wasn’t driving all the way there for Harry to make a fool of himself again, and _that_ time Harry aced it. He did all the moves perfectly and he kept focus the whole time, and when it was time to break the board, he hit it with the heel of his hand and it split with a satisfying _clack._ His mum took him for pizza to celebrate, and Harry couldn’t stop smiling the entire time. 

He’d been taking taekwondo lessons for a year then and while he hadn’t liked it that much at first, he’d gotten used to sparring and getting hit and sometimes even hitting back. He knew it wasn't supposed to hurt, and most times it didn’t — it was mostly the shock of getting kicked in the head or seeing a fist flying towards his face that jarred him. Sometimes it _did_ hurt, though, because not everyone in the class was good at pulling back at the last second, and it made him want to quit.

He couldn’t, or his dad would never stop going on about it, but he still wished he could every time he ended up biting back tears at the end of a lesson. Only the younger kids sometimes cried after sparring, and Harry was already one of the oldest in the group, it was bad enough that he was only now graduating to a yellow belt when some of the eight-year-olds were already at green.

Most days it was perfectly fine, though. He liked when his instructor praised him, he liked that he’d made friends with the other students, and he liked that he got to wear a cool uniform. He played sports at school, but his footie kit was a bit boring in comparison. Plus, he usually got picked close to last when they played at recess, and that never happened in taekwondo lessons because there weren’t any teams and everyone had to always be paired up. Sometimes, if someone missed a class, Mr Cruz would spar with the students and show them cool moves they would learn later. 

It made Harry want to stay on until he got his black belt, which sometimes felt like it would never happen. 

The top student in his class was a girl his age named Zoe. Mr Cruz never said she was the top student, but everyone could tell. She was a blue belt and she’d been training for longer than everyone else. During competitions, she _always_ got medals, even when no one else from their group did. Harry talked about her so much at home that Gemma had started calling her Harry’s girlfriend, which she wasn’t, she was just really good at taekwondo.

“But you _want_ her to be your girlfriend,” Gemma said. Harry wasn’t sure, but the thought did make his tummy squirm the same way it did when people kissed on the telly, so maybe he did (not that he was ever telling Gemma that).

A lot of boys at school had girlfriends now - they all talked about it. Terry had kissed Sara in the playground the week before, and everyone had seen it. Later, Terry’d told all of them that she had lifted up her skirt and shown him her knickers on their walk home. Harry didn’t quite believe it, but now all the boys talked about Sara’s knickers all the time, and laughed when she walked by them. 

Harry laughed sometimes, too, just because everyone else did. 

His dad asked sometimes when he was going to get a girlfriend of his own. At his school, the girls were always the ones who asked the guys. No girl had asked Harry yet, and that was probably because he was friends with all of them, and they talked about the other boys with him and asked him questions about them. 

Most of the other boys in his class had stopped being friends with the girls some time ago. Now, they stood at different ends of the playground at recess, and only some of them talked to each other like they’d always had. 

Harry was one of them, and also a boy named Ben that was new to their year and everyone picked on. Even the girls did a bit, but they let him join in their games, too, so Harry thought they were nicer than the boys, who called Ben names and pushed him around when the teachers weren’t looking. 

Sometimes Harry was convinced that the only reason he wasn’t pushed around as much as Ben was because his sister was a Year 10 and was best mates with a Year 9. The older kids had different recess times, but everyone still knew — even the kids from different towns — and they left Harry alone most of the time.

Harry hadn’t told anyone that Louis was his best mate, obviously. It was his most well-kept secret. He knew that people would think it was weird for Louis to have an eleven-year-old as a best mate, and he didn’t mind not saying anything. 

He only wished they could walk home together at least, but Louis always rode his bike home with his friends now, and sometimes he didn’t even go home straight away — he would ride to town and do whatever year 9 kids did, or he would go to his other friends’ houses and not go home until if was almost dark out. Harry was a bit jealous because Louis didn’t come over to his house that often anymore, or even talked to Harry much, either, and every time Harry went over and asked for him, Louis’ mum told him Louis wasn’t there. 

Louis had gotten a job in the summer, and he still worked some weekends now that school was back on. He was busy all the time now, and Harry was left spending time with Louis’ little sisters instead. Louis was a delivery boy and he’d even brought groceries to Harry’s house once. He wore a hat with the shop’s name on it and Harry couldn’t wait to be fourteen and get a job there as well and get a hat of his own and work with Louis delivering groceries and getting pocket money like Louis had gotten from Harry’s mum. He’d already gotten the same colour bike as Louis for his last birthday, so they could match.

It was a Saturday the day Harry finally got his yellow belt, and he had checked with Miss Jay that Louis wouldn’t be working because he wanted to go over and show him. Miss Jay had told him that she was taking the girls to their nan’s house, but that Louis would be in, so Harry was looking forward to it as he sat with his mum at the pizza place and chewed on a slice, careful not to get tomato sauce on his uniform.

“You did so well, darling,” his mum told him. “Are you happy?”

“Yup,” Harry said, and he wasn’t just happy about the yellow belt and the medal, he was also happy to get his mum all to himself for once. She was busy a lot, too, so the very few times they ate out, it was usually the three of them with Gemma, sometimes four if his mum’s friend Robin joined them. 

His mum smiled and rubbed his cheek with her thumb.

“My little Karate Kid,” she said.

“Taekwondo,” Harry corrected.

“Well, there’s no Taekwondo Kid, is there?”

“Yeah, there is. Me!” Harry grinned around his slice of pizza when his mum laughed. He liked making his mum laugh. He was good at it, better than Gemma by far. They’d had a talent show at school when classes first started, and Harry had stood on a stage and had told all his best jokes into a microphone. The way his mum had whooped and clapped for him had made Harry go hot in the face, and even though people laughed at him, he’d loved it.

The way Harry’s skin had buzzed with excitement had felt almost the same as what it was like when they called his name to hand him his medal and his new belt. It felt good to be good at things, he thought. Sometimes it seemed like everyone he knew was good at something except for him. Gemma was good at school and at art, Zoe was the best at taekwondo, Louis was good at _everything_ — it was like Harry couldn’t keep up sometimes, no one gave him a moment to get good at something before a new thing came about. 

When Harry had _finally_ convinced his mum to get him the videogame everyone in his class kept talking about, it suddenly wasn’t cool anymore. When he _finally_ learned all the words to Gemma’s favourite CD, Gemma said she was tired of it. When he was _finally_ old enough to come and go as he pleased (during daylight hours and always telling his mum where he was going and when he’d be back) Louis, who was his best and only friend who lived close by, was too busy and too grown up to spend time with him. 

Harry had both pieces of the board he’d broken in half to show him. He’d changed belts in the car and folded the old one as carefully as he could to keep. He’d seen a film about a Taekwondo champion who kept all his belts hung from the wall in picture frames and he had the idea that he wanted to do the same. Someday he’d have all the colours and everyone who came into his room would see them there on the wall. He wanted to invite Louis over and show him, along with the black belt he’d have by then and—

“Darling,” his mum said and Harry blinked away from his fantasy, swallowing his last bite of pizza. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Just like that, Harry’s belly twisted and his good mood evaporated. Oh no. It was never good news when his mum said she wanted to talk to him all serious like that. It was how she had told him and Gemma that their grandad had died. And how she’d told them that their dad was getting married and they wouldn’t be able to go on vacation after all. Harry put his slice of pizza on the paper plate in front of him. 

“You know my friend Robin’s been spending time with us,” she said, and Harry thought _oh no, something bad’s happened to him._ “And that we’ve been seeing each other without you kids, too.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. He knew sometimes his mum and Robin went to see films for grownups, or went out to parties that Harry wasn’t allowed to go to no matter how much he begged and begged. 

“Well, I’ve been wondering, how would you feel about him living in the house with us?”

That stopped Harry short. It was nothing like he’d imagined his mum wanted to talk about. Where would Robin sleep, anyway? All the rooms were taken and his mum had promised _Harry_ would move to the attic when he was older and they fixed it up, not Robin. He guessed Robin could sleep on the couch downstairs, but it’d be a little weird. He didn’t understand why Robin couldn’t stay living at his own house. 

“Why?”

“Because we care about each other and want to be closer,” she said. “Would that be a bad thing to happen?”

“No…” Harry didn’t think it’d be _bad,_ just strange. He was fine with just his mum and Gemma — they all got along now, even him and Gemma more or less. Maybe Robin wouldn’t like the food Harry’s mum made that Harry loved, or he wouldn't like that the tap water took a long time to heat up in winter. Maybe he wouldn’t like Harry anymore when he found out it had taken him three tries to get his yellow belt, and that he sometimes used Gemma’s old Barbie dolls to play Taekwondo Championship Superfight because their legs bent really high for kicks.

It was the sort of game Harry knew had to stay inside his own house.

“Would you like that to happen?” his mum asked again, and Harry picked on a dent on the greasy table so he wouldn’t have to look up.

“I don’t know,” he said, sensing it was the easiest way his mum would stop talking about it for now. 

“Alright, you can have a little think about how you feel, okay? You don’t have to tell me right now.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, then. Eat your pizza, Taekwondo Kid.”

.

By the time they were pulling into their driveway, Harry’s spirits had lifted a bit. He clutched his pieces of wood in his hands and hoped Miss Jay had been right and Louis really was home. Maybe he’d be so impressed with him that he would ask Harry to show him his sparring moves. The whole sequence was already playing in Harry’s head: Louis’ eyes going big with amazement at the sight of Harry’s brand new medal, Harry showing him how well he could kick, Louis immediately ringing his mum and asking her to let him take taekwondo lessons too. Just thinking about it made Harry smile to himself.

“What’s that big grin about?” his mum asked as she parked the car and turned the music off. They’ve been singing along to one of her CDs. Harry shook his head. 

“I’m gonna go show Louis my belt,” he said, already opening the door. 

“Baby, let Louis be. You can come inside and give your dad a ring to tell him the news.”

“Miss Jay said I could go,” Harry argued. “He wants to see.”

“It’s Saturday, Harry. He’s probably spending time with his friends.”

“I’m his friend, too!”

His mum didn’t say anything to that. She couldn’t, because Harry was telling the truth. Louis and him used to play together all the time before Louis got busy. Friendships didn’t stop because someone was busy, just like Harry’s mum didn’t stop being his mum when she worked a lot, or Harry’s dad didn’t stop being his dad because he lived in the city now. It wasn’t like Harry was a little baby anymore. He was younger than Louis but not by _that_ much. He walked to school by himself, all his stuffed animals stayed on the shelves instead of in his bed with him, and he only had a couple of more teeth to go before he’d lost all of his baby ones. 

“Maybe we can invite him to dinner another night and you can show him then,” Harry’s mum said. “We’ll invite the whole family, we’ll make a cake and everything.”

Harry was _almost_ swayed at the mention of cake. His mum had started teaching him to bake last summer. Harry liked it because it was fun and he _loved_ chocolate on anything but especially on cake, but he also liked that now he was allowed to ride his bike to the shop when they were missing ingredients and sometimes he would meet Louis there at his job. One time they even rode back together part of the way, and Harry had wanted to race but Louis said Harry would fall and smash the eggs he was carrying in the basket on the front of his bike, so they didn’t. 

Louis’ basket was like a little trailer that he carried behind him. He could take it off when he wasn’t working — sometimes Harry saw him doing tricks on his bike with his friends on the road between their houses. Harry had practised some of them by himself in his back garden but he’d kept falling.

Maybe he and Louis could trade tricks. Harry could show him how to punch wooden slates in half and Louis could show him how to make the front wheel of his bike pop up off the ground and stay there. 

Determined again, Harry opened the car door all the way. 

“I’ll show him now,” he said, jumping down. “But we can still bake a cake later. Okay?”

“Harry,” his mum began. 

“Mum, _please,”_ Harry whined. “Please, please, please, _pleeaase_ — _”_

“And what about your dad?” 

“I’ll ring him later, I _promise.”_ Harry tried to look as convincing as possible, even though he was planning on forgetting to ring his dad later because he never knew what to say when they talked on the phone. His dad didn’t say much and he never seemed to like Harry’s answers to his questions so Harry always felt nervous the whole time they were on the phone.

“Fine, but—”

“Bye!”

Harry ran away before his mum could finish speaking. He slipped a little on the gravel but managed to keep his footing and turned towards the road. 

His and Louis’ houses were quite far apart from each other, Louis’ downhill from Harry’s. Even though Harry could easily see Louis’ house from his window and their yards touched in the middle, he was out of breath by the time he was running through the rusty front gate. As soon as he did, Harry drew to a halt. There were four bikes littered across the driveway, Louis’ blue one among them. 

He hesitated for a second. Louis had friends over, which meant other Year 9 kids would be there when Harry walked in. For a moment, he almost turned right back around. But then he remembered Miss Jay had invited him, and that Louis was his friend — had been his friend _first,_ even.

He kept walking. 

The front door was unlocked, as always. Harry stepped inside carefully, peeking into the hall. He could hear boys laughing somewhere. He held the two halves of wood against his chest and followed the sound. 

Louis’ house was smaller than his and always messy with girl toys and girl clothes all over the floor. Harry knew that Louis’ room was upstairs, and he knew that Louis used to have a million toys and games that Harry always wanted to try out and was never allowed. The voices were not coming from upstairs, though, but from somewhere at the back of the house. There was only the kitchen and the dining room on the ground floor, and Harry checked both, walking quietly and peering around each doorway. He always felt a little shy around older kids he didn’t know — at least until he was sure if they were mean or not. Of course he didn’t think Louis’ friends would be mean, _Louis_ wasn’t, but Harry was still a little wary.

Just off the kitchen was the mudroom, and from where Harry stood he could see that the back door was open. He could also hear laughter coming from outside, older boys talking and having fun. Biting his lip into his mouth not to make a sound, Harry inched forward. 

Louis’ backyard was as big as Harry’s. It was fenced off on the sides but it seemed to stretch forever if you looked forward. All the way at the end was a little pond that both houses shared, and a little forest with the remains of a treehouse Harry’s dad had tried to build when Gemma was little but never finished. Looking out the back door, all Harry could see was green in every direction. 

There was a little wooden porch, though, just on the side of the door and close to the house. Louis’ family had dinner out there in the summer, there was a grill and a table with enough chairs to spare. Harry could hear them sometimes from his room — especially Louis and his sisters playing in the yard while their dad cooked. It made him wonder what it’d be like to have a different family. A bigger one with lots of little kids around. Harry loved his mum but sometimes it was a little boring that there were only three of them and Gemma barely spent time at the house anymore since she’d gotten a boyfriend. Harry was allowed to have friends over but most of them were girls and they weren’t allowed to sleep over anymore. They didn’t invite him to spend the night at their houses like they used to either. 

Maybe that was why his mum wanted Robin to live with them — maybe she was a bit bored, too.

Louis was lucky. Harry, standing in the mudroom, could hear him laughing with his friends outside and it made him feel a little lonely. 

“That’s fucking sick,” he heard someone say, and Harry’s heart started beating fast at the curse word. That was Louis’ voice, and Harry had never heard him curse before. The back of his neck itched, the feeling that a grownup was going to suddenly materialize behind him and tell them off was so strong he had to step closer to the back door and away from the rest of the house. 

“Lewis, give that here,” someone else said, and then people laughed and there was a scuffle and a thump. Harry pressed his back against the shoe cupboard. 

From this new angle, he could see the back of a boy standing on the porch. It was Roy, Louis’ friend that Harry liked the least. Harry knew it was him because he had hair as long as a girl’s, nearly black and going past his shoulders. His hair was only one of the reasons Harry didn’t like him — mostly he just hated that every time Louis wasn’t home, he was at Roy’s. Every time Louis told Harry about something he’d done at school, he’d been with Roy. If Harry came over and Miss Jay said Louis had a friend over, Harry was always sure who it was: _Roy,_ with his long hair and chipped tooth and weird laugh. 

In his opinion, Harry made a much better friend than Roy. All his teeth were whole, for one. His hair was the right length for a boy and he had a yellow belt in taekwondo. Roy dressed oddly; he wore bracelets with spikes on them and painted his nails black. 

He could see Roy was standing closer to Louis because, even though Harry couldn’t see his face, he knew the red jumper Louis was wearing. He knew Louis’ favourite colour was red and that was why it was Harry’s favourite, too. He wanted to call out but he didn’t want the other boys to hear him. He felt smaller than he was knowing they were standing there cursing and laughing like they were all grown up. 

“Greg, you big tit, you broke it!” Louis said, laughing again. Harry didn’t know who Greg was. 

They were standing in a circle, passing something back and forth. Harry couldn’t see what it was, and curiosity spiked in his chest. Whatever it was had to be fun because they were all snickering and Harry thought that maybe if he gathered his courage and said hello they would let him join in even if he was younger than all of them. 

He was leaning so far out the door now that he could feel the sun on his face. He was trying to peer in between two boys’ bodies to see what was in their hands when he lost his balance and stumbled out onto the porch. 

He didn’t make much noise, but one of Louis’ friends who was facing his way snapped his head up and saw him. 

“Oi!” he yelled, and Harry stood straight, eyes wide. “Who’re you, then?”

All of them were looking at him now, and Harry searched for Louis’ eyes for help, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. When he saw the look on his face, though, Harry felt himself shrivel a little. Louis looked angry.

“Is that your little brother?” another boy asked. 

“He’s my neighbour,” said Louis, sounding annoyed. “Leave him alone.”

“We’re not doing anything!” someone else said. Harry had to look away from Louis’ unfriendly face, tongue still tied, and his eyes landed on Roy. As soon as they did, something in his belly swooped unpleasantly. 

Roy’s eyes were lined with black, the same way Gemma did them lately. Thick black lines that made his eyes look lighter and bigger and more like a girls’. That, plus his hair and his nails and the clothes he wore that clung to his sides made him look too strange for Harry not to stare. He didn’t know any other boy who dressed like that, and he couldn’t help but wonder what his dad would think of it. He was always talking about people’s hair and clothes because he said there were some things that were allowed and others that would make you get smacked in the street. Harry wondered if Roy had ever been smacked in the street because his eyelashes looked so long with makeup on. Maybe no one had told him he wasn’t supposed to. Or maybe being Louis’ friend protected him from that. Louis was the kind of friend that everyone wanted to have: he was funny, and he liked sports, and his hair was a normal length. Harry’s school mates knew not to tease him because he was Louis’ friend, he was sure.

“Something wrong?” Roy asked, and Harry could see his chipped tooth when he spoke. He was missing nearly half of it. Harry remembered when Louis told him what had happened a long time ago and they’d even gone back to the place Roy had fallen to find the little piece among the grass. They hadn’t, but it’d been fun to search for it just the two of them, pretending it was magic and they needed it for a spell.

“Lottie’s gone to my nan’s, Harry,” Louis said, and Harry tore his eyes away from Roy to look at him. 

“I know,” he said, confused because Harry never came to see Lottie — he got _stuck_ with Lottie when Louis was busy.. “I...I wanted to show you my belt.”

He pushed his belly forward so Louis could see the new yellow belt, trying to ignore the other boys around him. Especially Roy, who was standing the closest. 

“Alright,” Louis said. He didn’t sound impressed at all. “I’ve seen it. It’s nice.”

“I won the test. Look.” He showed Louis the two pieces of wood he was carrying, making sure he could see how nicely it was split right in the middle. “See?”

“That’s cool,” Louis said, but he was being weird. He didn’t sound like Louis at all. Harry lowered his hands and bit his lip into his mouth. He didn’t know what to say to make Louis act normal, and he felt like all the older boys were looking at him like he was stupid. 

“I can show you—” he started to say, voice a little quieter, but then one of the other boys spoke up.

“That’s cool, mate. You’re a proper fighter, aren’t you?” 

Harry looked at him and said nothing. Maybe this was Lewis. Or Greg.

“Let me see,” the boy said, and came over and took one of the pieces of wood from Harry’s hand. Harry bit his lip harder not to protest. He didn’t want to be whiny. “That’s impressive. Can you do, like, bricks and stuff, too?” 

“No—”

“Greg, you did karate, yeah? Show us some moves.” The boy held the piece of wood in both hands in front of him as another one came forward and, before Harry could say anything to stop them, he yelled _“hiya!”_ and snapped it with a sharp clack. 

“Hey, that’s mine!” Harry shouted, all wobbly. 

“Lads, don’t be dicks, come on,” Louis said and took the wood back. “He’s a little kid.” 

Harry wanted to argue, but he held his tongue. 

“We’re saying we’re impressed,” the boy said, laughing. He looked at Harry. “You can show us with the other one, come on.” 

He tried to take the piece still in Harry’s hands and Harry turned around and held it against his chest. 

“It’s mine,” he said. 

“I know, mate,” the boy said, trying to take it. 

“Sean, leave him alone,” Roy said. Harry glared at him over his shoulder. He didn’t need _Roy_ to defend him. 

“I’m just saying he can show us his moves,” Sean said. He was grabbing Harry’s shoulder and trying to turn him around and Harry was tempted to bite his hand. 

“Mate, stop it,” Louis said, and pushed Sean away. There were some giggles but Harry didn’t care, he was grateful Louis was standing next to him. 

“I’m just _saying,_ Lewis,” Sean said again, and Harry’s head snapped around. They were calling Louis the wrong name! Maybe they weren’t really his friends after all, since they didn’t even know what he was called. Harry was a little relieved. 

“Well, stop _just saying,”_ Louis mocked him, but it sounded too nice to be really mocking. “Go home, Harry, yeah?”

Harry didn’t have time to feel disappointed before Sean was speaking again. 

“Aw, he doesn’t have to go,” he said. He was holding something to his mouth and his voice came out a little muffled. “Let the little lad stay.”

When he moved his hand away, Harry could see that he was smoking. Harry’d never seen someone smoke who wasn’t a grownup. It gave him the same cornered feeling he’d gotten when he heard Louis curse before. 

Now that Sean wasn’t in his face, Harry could look around more carefully. Out of all the boys, he knew Louis, Roy and another one with red hair that he knew was in Louis’ year. Then there was Sean and the one called Greg. Looking closely, he was quite sure they were even older than Louis and the rest. 

“Lewis, gimme a light?” Roy asked, and Louis moved away from Harry to hand him a bright green lighter. This was shocking for two reasons: one, Louis was holding a lighter which made him an accomplice to the smoking going on, and two, Roy called him Lewis, too, and Harry _knew_ he knew Louis’ real name. Maybe Louis preferred to be called Lewis now and Harry just didn’t know it.

He thought it was stupid. 

At school, people called him Harry S because he was one of three in his year alone. There were four Daniels, two Williams and five Sophies. There was only one Louis in the whole entire school as far as Harry knew, and now they were apparently calling him _Lewis,_ which wasn’t special at all. 

As he watched, Roy flicked the green lighter and held it to the tip of the cigarette between his lips. His face was tilted down and Harry felt his mouth go dry for some reason. It was just...Roy’s eyelashes looked really long and pretty when he did that, and his long hair fell across his cheeks and Harry forgot he wasn’t a girl when it did that. Watching him was making Harry’s belly go all tingly, and he looked quickly away, back towards Louis, who (now that Harry was looking closely) didn’t need makeup to make his eyelashes long and pretty and his eyes blue and sparkly. He just had to stand there with the sun on his face, making his hair shine.

The tingles got worse. 

Just then, as Harry watched, Roy offered his cigarette to Louis, who gave Harry a quick look before taking it and putting it in his mouth, lips thinning and cheeks hollowing as the tip burned red. A zing went from Harry’s belly button down to his knees. 

It was both gross and amazing, and he couldn’t stop staring. 

Louis looked like a proper adult, one hand on his hip and the other flicking ash onto the porch. He held the cigarette between his index and middle fingers, tapped the end with his thumb. The end that had been in Roy’s mouth, and then in Louis’. The air smelled like smoke and Harry’s heart was pounding, his cheeks burning. For a second, he forgot he was only eleven and wearing his taekwondo uniform surrounded by older boys and imagined himself taking Louis’ cigarette and smoking it, too. They would share it, pass it back and forth, and Harry would make smoke rings to impress all of them. 

“I think the little lad wants a hit,” Sean said, and his voice shattered Harry’s daydream. His guard was up in a second and he took a hasty step back. 

“No, I don’t,” he said, worried that one of the boys would try to hit him. 

“You’re looking at it like you do,” Greg put in, and he came at Harry with his arm stretched out like he was about to punch him. Harry jumped and hurried to stand closer to Louis. He heard a couple boys laughing, but he was looking at his feet, so he didn’t know who it was. 

He bet it was Roy.

“They’re not actually poison,” Greg said. He held a cigarette under Harry’s nose. Confused, Harry shook his head. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Louis said, and Harry looked up so fast his neck popped. Louis had never called him an idiot before, and he felt the sting of tears in his eyes before he realised Louis wasn't even talking to him — he was glaring at Greg. Harry wished he’d stayed home to bake a cake with his mum. 

“It’s only polite,” Greg said.

“Piss off, he’s a little kid.” Again, Harry wanted to say something to that. He _wasn’t_ a little kid anymore, and even though it looked like he was hiding behind Louis, he didn’t really need anyone to defend him. He _did_ have a yellow belt in taekwondo, after all. 

“Maybe he wants one of mine,” Sean said, and Harry noticed that his cigarette was different than the one Louis was smoking. It looked like a fake one made out of a little roll of paper, but the smoke that Sean blew over his shoulder was real.

“Ha ha,” Louis said. “You should go home, Harry.”

Before Harry could protest (even though he did want to go home, he didn’t like to feel like Louis was kicking him out), Sean spoke up again.

“Harry, mate, you haven’t shown us your moves yet. You’ve got a nice medal there, bet you’re good.”

It was probably teasing, but Harry still felt himself preen at the compliment. Someone had noticed his medal, at least. And he did have some sick moves to show off. They wouldn’t have given him a yellow belt without them.

He looked at Louis to see what to do, but he was avoiding Harry’s eyes. Roy, though, was looking right at Harry. Thinking that Roy would be watching him show off made him anxious. It felt like he’d be proving himself. That he was Louis’ friend and was allowed to be here. He wasn’t going to smoke because his mum would maybe kill him and Gemma had told him people who smoke are losers (she obviously didn’t know Louis did), and he didn’t want to get hit, but he did know his sparring routine backwards and forwards. He was good at something. 

“I can show you,” he said, feeling brave. Sean let out a whoop and waved everyone back. Louis hesitated. 

“Harry, come on,” he said in a tired voice. It made Harry a bit angry.

“S’what I wanted to show you, anyway.”

“Yeah, he wants to show you. Don’t break his little heart, Lewis,” Sean said and the quiet red haired kid laughed.

“Whatever,” Louis said. He moved away from Harry and closer to Roy, so that Harry was left in the middle of a circle, still holding his remaining piece of wood in his hands. He put it on the floor and stood at attention for a moment. He took a deep breath like his mum had taught him for when he was nervous, and then began his routine. 

His instructor called them patterns, and they weren’t supposed to be about fighting, just form, but Harry always liked to imagine he was a Power Ranger and he was going against one of the weird monsters from the show. Harry and Louis used to watch it together.

He went through the pattern that had gotten him his medal, trying to ignore the whispering around him, and when he was done, he looked up and searched for Louis’ eyes. But Louis had his back to him, he was talking to Roy off to the side, and Harry dropped his arms and scowled.

“Nice one, little lad!” Sean said from across the porch. He clapped, and Harry felt his cheeks go warm. Sean put his hand up, and Harry walked over and gave him a high five that made his palm sting. “Bet you’d kick any of our arses, huh?”

Harry grinned and watched as Sean put his odd-looking cigarette in his mouth. The smoke over here on this side of the porch smelled different, bitter and less familiar. Sean asked him about taekwondo and Harry told him everything he knew, mouth running and words spilling out now that he wasn’t so wary. He’d known Louis’ friends would be nice, even if Louis was acting as if he was in a bad mood. Gemma’s friends always treated Harry like a little baby, and her boyfriend was usually quiet and stayed in Gemma’s room (with the door open, Mum said and Harry supervised) the whole time he visited, but Harry liked older kids. They got to do cool stuff and no one scolded them for it. Being allowed to stay and stand in the same circle as them felt like a great honour. 

“So, Harry,” Sean said once Harry had run out of taekwondo facts to share. “You’ve got a girlfriend yet?”

“No,” Harry said, bored with the question. Sean sounded like his dad, even the tone was the same. Like he knew the answer but he wanted Harry to say it anyway.

“Why’s that?”

Harry shrugged. He’d had a girlfriend in Year 2. She’d come over to him during recess and said Harry was her boyfriend now and then nothing special had happened until a few days later when she’d come over to him again and said Harry _wasn’t_ her boyfriend anymore. He had a feeling having a girlfriend in year seven would be different than that, mostly because everyone seemed so interested in it, but Harry didn’t care much for it. 

“Fancy anyone in your year?”

“No,” Harry said.

“I don’t think Harry’s discovered what his willy’s for yet,” Greg said from off to the side, and then everyone laughed, making Harry embarrassed again.

“Yes, I have!” 

“Nah, don’t think so,” Greg said. 

But Harry had. Well, he’d had a lesson at school about it the previous year. He was still unclear about the details, but he knew how...things happened. Or how they were supposed to happen, like, to make babies and everything. But eleven-year-old kids didn’t go around making babies, so he wasn’t sure how his penis had anything to do with whether he had a girlfriend or not. 

“Don’t listen to him,” Sean said. “Knowing what his willy’s for doesn’t make him any good with it.”

“Fuck you, man,” Greg grumbled and Harry laughed just because everyone else did. Everyone but Louis, who was frowning at him when Harry checked over his shoulder, all the way across the porch. 

Harry ducked his head. 

It was a little fun to stand there and listen to everyone banter. It was also a little boring, because when they ran out of things to ask him, they started talking about people Harry didn’t know, cursing more, smoking so much Harry had to start rubbing his nose just to try to get the smell out. Louis seemed to forget he was angry because he started joking with everyone else, but Harry still noticed that he, Roy, and the red haired boy stayed on one side of the porch while Sean and Greg stayed on the other. Harry stood by Sean at first, fiddling with his sleeves, but wandered closer to Louis as time passed, wanting to be noticed. Louis hadn’t really said anything directly to Harry other than to leave, not even after he’d seen how good Harry was at taekwondo. 

Slowly, Harry ambled his way. Louis was holding his own cigarette now, not sharing with Roy anymore, and his jumper looked warm. All of Louis looked warm, actually, as if he’d be hot to the touch if Harry were to press his hand against any part of him. Maybe it was because his jumper was red. Or maybe because the sun lit his hair up and made it look gold. Next to Roy, who was dressed head to toe in black, Louis looked like the hero in a film. 

Louis was whispering something to Roy when Harry finally reached them, but he stopped talking as soon as Harry poked his side. 

“What?” he said. He was still angry, then.

Harry shrugged, dropping his hand. Louis sighed and switched his cigarette to the hand on the opposite side from Harry. He turned back to Roy. 

Harry poked him again.

“What, Harry?”

“Are they in your year?” Harry asked. It was the first thing he could think of — he just wanted Louis to pay attention to him for a moment. 

“Why do you care?” Louis asked. 

“I just want to know.”

“So you can go tell on me to my mum?” Louis’ voice was a whisper now, but still an angry one. He was leaning close to Harry so that Harry could smell the smoke on him. 

“I’m not gonna tell,” Harry whispered back. “They’re funny.”

“You don’t even understand half of what they’re saying.”

“Yeah, I do!”

Louis rolled his eyes and moved away.

“Louis,” Harry tried, and Louis shushed him. 

“Not my name.”

Curling his hands into fists, Harry stopped himself from stomping his foot. Barely. 

“It _is_ your name.”

“Not if you want to stay.”

Annoyed, Harry crossed his arms over his chest. He looked to the side and caught Roy staring at him again. Harry frowned harder. The red haired kid had jumped off the porch and was dribbling one of the footballs that were always scattered around Louis’ yard. 

Harry wasn’t even sure why he wanted to stay. No one was doing anything exciting, but he still didn’t want to miss out. He wandered away again, and found the piece of wood he’d left on the floor. Inspired, he picked it up and turned to call Louis, but stopped with the wrong name halfway out of his mouth so that he ended up yelling, “Lou!” and then instantly panicked. He wasn’t sure Louis would hate that name, too.

“I’m here, you don’t have to shout,” Louis said, as someone behind Harry went _‘aaw’._

Harry focused on Louis and the fact that he didn’t seem that cross. 

“I can show you how I split this in half! It’s really cool, you’ve got to do it to get your belt. See? I already did it once.” He pointed out the splintered side to Louis.

“Ooh, yeah, let’s see that,” Sean said. He came over and took the wood from Harry. “I’ll hold it for you.”

Harry wanted Louis to hold it, but since Louis said nothing and stayed where he was, Harry turned and got into position.

“Louis, watch. I mean, Lewis! Watch me.”

“Alright, alright,” Louis said.

Sean held the wood with its flat side facing Harry, which meant Harry would have to use his closed fist to break it. He could do it. He focused, breathed in and out, felt his feet planted firmly on the floor.

“Watch,” he said again for good measure, and then went _‘ha!’_ and swung, and nearly punched Sean in the face when he moved the plank away at the last second.

“Hey!” Harry cried. Everyone laughed, even Louis. 

“Gotta be faster than me, little lad,” Sean said. Harry gritted his teeth. “Try again.”

This time he held it facing up, so Harry quickly brought his hand down, nearly falling on his face when he missed again.

“Stop it!”

“Alright, I’ll be good this time,” Sean said, but did the same thing again as soon as Harry tried to hit the piece of wood. 

Harry could feel angry tears gathering in his eyes, not only because of the teasing, but because he knew Louis was laughing along with everyone else and Harry didn’t think it was funny at all. Louis was supposed to be his friend and not make fun of him. Harry just wanted to show him how good at taekwondo he was.

“I wanna go, me, me, me,” Greg said, and got in front of Harry and did a silly pose before swinging his arm and snapping the remaining piece in half, now too small to break again.

Harry didn’t even have words to protest. He just stared as Sean flicked both halves out towards the grass like frisbees. When he looked behind him, Louis was still laughing, but he stopped as soon as he saw Harry watching, betrayed.

Greg was holding his arms up and running in a circle, and he bumped into Harry on his way and made him stumble onto his knees. Harry started sniffling. 

“Whoa, whoa, none of that,” Sean said. He was suddenly next to Harry and pulling him back to his feet. “We’re just playing.”

Harry was old enough to know the difference between playing and bullying (they’d had a lesson about that at school, too) and it _wasn’t_ playing if someone was crying. 

He looked to Louis for help — it was because of Louis that Harry never got bullied at school, Harry was sure — but now Louis looked embarrassed, and it made Harry embarrassed as well. 

“You’re not even supposed to be here,” Harry said, looking at the floor. 

“Why’s that?” Sean asked, still laughing.

“You’re old and you smoke.”

Sean laughed some more.

“Now you’re being mean to me!” he said and pretended to cry into his hands. Harry gave him a look he’d learned from Gemma that meant he knew Sean was pretending and also thought he was stupid. Gemma did it with one eyebrow raised, but Harry'd never learned to do that, so he had to lift both. He was certain it had the same effect. 

“Aw, you made him cry!” Greg said. “Lewis, you should comfort him, go on.”

Harry saw Louis going dark red in the face.

“Shut up,” he mumbled, and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“You know you want to,” Greg sang and Louis rolled his eyes again, and turned towards Roy. His ears were as red as his jumper. “Come on, a little kiss.”

“Piss off!” Louis yelled with his back still turned, and Harry was confused about how it’d gone from him being teased, to Louis. “And stop messing with him.”

“He called me old, _Lewis,”_ Sean said. Harry’d noticed before how he said Louis’ fake name as if it was a joke. He was doing it again.

“You are old,” Louis bit back. 

“Oh yeah, sixteen’s ancient, innit.”

“He’s ten, mate, you’re practically his grandfather.”

Wait.

“I’m _eleven!”_ Harry said loudly. “Almost _twelve.”_

Everyone ignored him. 

“A little kiss to mend my broken heart, Lewis,” Sean was saying, walking closer to Louis. He put his face near Louis’, pouting with his lip sticking all the way out. It made him look stupid. Suddenly, Harry didn’t like Sean anymore, and he didn’t think he was funny. He was acting like a baby and Louis wasn’t even getting angry about it. He’d turned his red face a little to the side, and Harry could see that he was smiling. 

“A little kiss?” Sean asked again.

And Harry expected Louis to shove Sean away for being weird. Boys didn’t go around asking other boys for kisses, did they? Not without getting smacked, Harry was sure. Harry was definitely about to witness Louis smacking Sean. 

But instead of smacking him, Louis leaned in and kissed his cheek. 

Harry’s belly did a turn. It was the same feeling he got watching Louis share spit with Roy as they smoked the same cigarette, only stronger and more terrible, because it came along with a sense of wrongness that Harry had never, ever associated with Louis before.

The red haired kid groaned and fake-gagged at the kiss, and Louis raised his middle finger at him. Meanwhile, Sean was pretending to faint and Harry _hated_ him. Even more now than when he’d been teasing him. He wanted him gone, he wasn’t even supposed to be there, he wasn’t even in Louis’ year, he had no business being at Louis’ house at all.

Just then, Louis turned to Harry. Harry didn’t know what his face was doing, but Louis’ got even redder when he caught Harry staring, and his mouth got all twisted up. He threw what remained of his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. When he started coming after Harry, Harry almost wanted to run from him. He looked angry. Maybe Harry would be the one getting smacked after all. 

But Louis didn't hit him, either. He grabbed Harry’s uniform collar and pulled, dragging Harry back into the house. Harry held on to Louis’ wrist and didn’t try to protest. 

Inside, Louis didn’t stop in the kitchen. He took Harry all the way to the front door, even when Harry started going _‘ow! ow! ow!’_ because he was tripping on his own feet. 

“There,” Louis said as he let go, leaving Harry standing on the welcome mat. “Go home.”

“Why?” Harry asked, wanting to fight. “I didn’t do anything!”

“I didn’t invite you!”

“Your mum did!”

At that, Louis’ face twisted again. He came close so that Harry smelled smoke again.

“Don’t say anything to my mum,” he said. “Not a thing. Promise.”

“Why not?”

“Because! She’ll kill me! Harry, don’t be a prick.”

Harry’s vision swam with tears.

“Don’t call me that!”

“I’m not! I’m saying don’t— You’re such a bloody baby, man.”

Anger made Harry’s fingers curl.

“Maybe I’ll tell your mum after all!”

“Why? I didn’t do anything to you!”

“You laughed.”

Louis shut his mouth at that, and Harry jutted his chin forward, even if he still felt like crying. 

“I won’t tell, but you _laughed.”_

“Well, it was funny.”

Harry shoved him and Louis shoved him back, harder. Harry started crying for real. 

“Smoking’s for losers,” he blubbered, using the rumpled fabric of his uniform to dry his face. 

_“You’re_ talking to me about losers,” Louis replied. 

Harry tried to think of something else, anything to hurt Louis at least a little bit. He’d never been good at bickering, people were always faster than him to think of mean things to say. 

“All your friends are weird!” he settled with.

“At least I’ve got friends. You’re weird all on your own.”

That wasn’t true! Harry wasn’t weird and he did have friends! _Louis_ was one of them.

But before Harry could open his mouth for anything that wasn't gulping in big puffs of air, Louis was leaning in again and reaching behind Harry to throw the door open. 

“Go home, I don’t want you here anymore.”

“Why?” Harry asked. He’d just wanted to show Louis his stupid belt and his stupid medal and now he’d lost the wooden plank that was proof of what Harry was capable of, and Louis was angry with him. All because of his stupid friends. 

“You’re— I didn’t invite you.” 

“But why? I’ll be quiet—”

“Harry, just— piss off, alright? Go hang out with kids your age.”

“Louis—”

“Fuck. Off.”

With that, Louis pushed him the last couple of steps out onto the stoop and closed the door in Harry’s face. Harry felt like he was about to explode from anger. He was warm down to his toes, and his eyes were still dripping, his throat went rigid and he closed his eyes, threw his head back and screamed out at the house, “PRAT!” — which was a word his dad used a lot that felt appropriate to express what Harry thought of Louis at the moment. Then, he ran down the driveway and kicked Louis’ bike so hard he hurt his big toe.

He hoped Louis’ mum came home early and caught them all smoking and _kissing_ and being weird. He hoped Louis got in trouble. He hoped he wouldn’t be allowed to see Sean again. And that Roy would stop painting his face like Harry’s sister so that Harry wouldn’t have to feel strange about it. 

He hoped Louis would stop being angry soon. 

.

When he got home, his mum made him ring his dad. His dad was at his house, and Harry could hear his little brother babbling in the background — he hadn’t seen him since before he could walk. He told his dad about his belt.

“About bloody time,” his dad said.

.

The following week, Harry’s mum friend Robin came over for dinner. His mum called him her boyfriend, and Harry finally understood. 

He wondered if they kissed each other, but decided he didn’t really want to know. 

.

A few weeks after that, already twelve years old and having decided he was quite grown up, Harry kissed Zoe from taekwondo on their way home after a lesson. He hadn’t known they were going to kiss, but he had the feeling Zoe had. It started when she said and ended when she pulled back. The kiss made Harry’s belly hot, and he thought he would like to do it again soon, whenever Zoe wanted to. 

She wanted to after every lesson. Every single time they kissed during the following month before he stopped going to taekwondo for good, Harry thought of Louis’ flushed face kissing Sean’s cheek, and of Louis’ mouth, mean as he hissed at Harry to fuck off.

He wondered if kissing would always make him think of Louis. He wondered what his dad would say to that if it did, since he was so interested to know about what Harry did with girls. 

He preferred not to think too much about it. He stopped going to taekwondo, anyway, and wasn’t kissing anyone anymore. Maybe later, when another girl wanted to kiss him, Harry would try and see what happened. 

In the meantime, he was still waiting for Louis to talk to him again, but too scared to be the one to talk to Louis first.


	4. Gardening, Lists and Figuring Things Out

Louis had always been a bit of a crier. He didn’t flaunt it, but he could get quite emotional on occasion. He tried not to be embarrassed of his hair-trigger when it came to tears, but there was only so much vulnerability a seventeen-year-old could show before he became a target, and really, there was only so much his winning personality could do against certain narrow-minded arseholes. 

So he hid it.

He had a strategy, Louis did. If he got tackled too hard during a footy game, then he wailed and rolled on the pitch all dramatic-like so no one would notice just how hurt he truly was. If he got into a fight with one of his mates, then he made a big scene of it, drew attention off of his very real anger. 

And if a teacher told him he had no future, then Louis laughed it off like it was all a big joke, like the prospect of being a forty-year-old delivery boy was hysterical and not terrifying to imagine. 

The part that hurt the most for Louis was that Mr Wallace didn't even say it in an angry way. He wasn't scolding Louis. He said it as if it was a given. He was laughing about it, sort of in a we-both-know-how-it-is way. And Louis laughed along and  _ agreed.  _

It made him angry at first, as he was leaving Mr Wallace’s classroom. Seething, actually. He walked down the hallway to the exit with his jaw clenched tight and his eyes burning, wishing he’d said something back, argued a bit. But his anger fizzled out quickly, and sadness and resignation came barreling in as soon as he was out the door. 

He’d stayed behind after class, so no one was there to watch him have a little cry on his way home. He rode his bike as fast as he could so that his tears could dry on his cheeks and it all felt very dramatic and unnecessary but he couldn’t help it. His mum was always telling him and his sisters not to bottle up their emotions and Louis was good at always taking her advice. Except she also always told him he could talk to her about anything, and the last thing Louis wanted to do was to go to her about this. 

It was too embarrassing, and he was a little afraid of what she might say. Maybe Louis was the only one who didn’t think he’d be bagging groceries for the rest of his life, and he’d rather not find out if that was the case.

The truth was that it was difficult sometimes to imagine his life ever being different. Sometimes Louis tried to think of his future and couldn’t quite picture it all that clearly. It was sort of fuzzy in his head — he didn’t know what he wanted to do for a living, he didn’t know if he’d get married or have kids, if he would live in the same town forever or not. It was just hard to think of a future where school wasn’t kicking his arse, where work wasn’t mind-numbingly dull, or where his mum wouldn’t need him around. Most of his mates from school were already looking at uni programs and searching for flats in cities Louis had never even visited, and Louis wasn’t sure he’d pass his A levels, wasn’t sure he cared to try anymore. 

He pedaled straight home. It was his day off, and normally he would head over to Roy’s, or they would meet in the town centre and figure out their plans there, but he wasn’t in the mood. Roy had top grades, and he was looking into unis all the way up in Glasgow — Louis wasn’t sure he could fake not wanting to cry if they saw each other. 

So instead of turning towards the little downtown, Louis rode uphill. The further he got from school, the lighter his chest felt. He let his mind turn off, concentrated on the road, the trees on either side of it, the sky starting to go pink as dusk fell. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be stuck there for the rest of his life. It was a pretty town if he didn’t pay attention to how most houses were a little battered with time, and how the asphalt on most streets was cracked, and there was usually nothing interesting to do after seven pm unless you had friends over eighteen who could drive you over to a bigger town, with proper pubs and clubs and cinemas that played more than one film at a time. 

Other than that, Louis’ village was almost like out of a postcard. There were rolling hills covered in little yellow flowers in summer, a creek with a decent natural pool, deep enough to dive into without cracking your head on the bottom. There were colourful farm houses spread out on the hills, all of them different shapes and sizes, though almost none of them really functioned as farms anymore. Still, there was always the odd horse grazing in someone’s front garden, a milking cow or two napping in someone else’s field. It was the sort of town that tourists from big cities visited sometimes and spent the whole time taking photo after photo, even of things Louis didn’t think were all that special. 

A few years before, someone had taken a picture of him standing outside the grocery shop. He’d been standing next to his bike, waiting to load an order on the trailer he attached to the back wheel when he was working. He’d also been wearing the snapback with the shop’s name on it, and the apron, too.

He remembered the lady with the camera who’d called him cute before snapping away. At the time, it’d made Louis preen. Now he couldn’t help but imagine the same woman visiting the town again, seeing the same boy waiting for a delivery outside the grocery shop, only old. She wouldn’t think it was cute anymore, that was for sure. She probably wouldn’t even want to take a photo. Louis definitely wouldn't want her to, anyway.

Sad again, he forced himself over the crest of the last hill before the road curved around the edge of his family’s property. There was his house, looking small and quiet from the outside. But Louis knew what he’d find as soon as he went through the front door — too many people, most of them shouting and demanding attention, some of them needing help with their homework, or bickering and slamming doors, or singing at the top of their lungs, or crying, or talking, or just sitting there quietly, but still  _ there, _ taking up what little space there was. 

Feeling sick with guilt, Louis rode by the gate and kept going, uphill again. 

As much as he knew his mum would appreciate the extra help, no one was actually expecting him home early on his day off. He felt like he needed quiet, and afternoons in his house were anything but. He needed some time to think about what Mr Wallace had said, even though he’d rather not think about it again. As much as he still felt like crying and giving up, deep down he knew he wasn’t about to fail out of school without a fight. 

He just had to figure out where to start. 

The last stretch of road between his house and the next was particularly pretty. There was a line of cherry trees lining the fence, small white flowers starting to bloom. When he was younger, Louis used to pick handfuls of them and give them to his mum so she could put them around the house. He wasn’t sure which property the trees belonged to, since there were plenty of spots both families shared, but it had never been a problem to have the limits slightly blurred.

Louis slowed down on his bike, peering over the fence at the old Cox farmhouse. There were no cars in the driveway, and no windows seemed to be open on this side of it. His heart fell a bit — he wanted an excuse not to go home, he didn’t want to wander around until he got hungry. He knew that if Anne caught him lurking she would invite him in for tea, but she was probably still at work. 

Just when he was about to turn back around, resigned, movement caught his eye. He stopped with one foot on the ground and the other on the pedal and craned his neck to look over the fence.

Harry was coming around the house. Perfect.

Harry was the kind of kid that would invite Louis in for tea. Maybe. They hadn’t been close in a long time, but Gemma would, and Anne would, so it was very likely Harry would, too. 

They used to spend a lot of time together, Harry and him. He wasn't sure when it changed exactly, it was a gradual thing. Louis grew up faster, and he had enough little kids at home clinging to him, and looking up to him, and expecting him to bend to their will. He guessed it came to a point when he didn’t want that outside of his family, and Harry used to be an  _ intense _ little kid. It used to make Louis feel awkward when Harry looked at him as if he held all the answers and he wanted to ask all the questions. 

Somewhere along the line, Louis had stopped spending his free time in his house, so it was more difficult to track him down, and Harry had stopped coming over looking for him. Eventually, he’d stopped waving at Louis if they saw each other in town or at school, and Louis started seeing him with bigger and bigger groups of people, starting to make better friends. And then Louis sort of stopped noticing him. Harry was one more familiar face in the sea of familiar faces that never, ever seemed to change in their boring little village. 

Louis watched him now, and paid attention for the first time in a long time. 

Harry’s nose was bigger and his eyebrows were thicker and darker, but Louis could still see the same face he’d known all his life. It was odd to see that face on a bigger body, under a mess of dark curls that Louis wasn’t sure when had materialised. He used to be a blond kid with pin-straight hair like Louis’, and then he wore a buzz cut for a long time. His hair was a deep brown now, curled across his forehead and over his ears and on the nape of his neck. His cheeks were still round, but his shoulders were broad, even slouching as he was. He was wearing his uniform jumper but had traded the trousers for a pair of ratty joggers that were too short and left his bony ankles exposed. 

Louis dropped his bike and his bookbag and went over to the fence. 

Harry was walking towards the edge of his yard, towards the side of the fence that bordered Louis' family’s side. He had an old-looking spiral notebook in his hand, and his boots were unlaced and caked with dry mud. Louis went closer so he could lean on a wooden post and peek over, curious. 

He watched as Harry knelt down in front of a naked patch of dirt. With his hands resting on his thighs, he seemed to survey the spot, head turning side to side, and then he leaned all the way forward, so that his nose was practically touching the ground. 

It made Louis smile. Whatever Harry was doing, he was completely focused on it. From where Louis was standing, it looked like he was sniffing the dirt, but that couldn’t be. To get a better look, Louis stepped on one of the fence boards and climbed up.

He used to jump over the fence all the time when he was a kid, he was always kicking his footballs over. He remembered playing a game with himself where he had to run and get them before anyone in the house saw him. It was a particularly challenging game because it felt as if Harry was always watching him from his house, and he always came running out to the yard if he saw Louis coming. 

Now it was Louis watching Harry, trying to get higher so he could see what the hell Harry was doing lying on his belly on the ground. He watched as Harry stayed where he was for a couple of seconds, and then dragged himself up and sat his bum down, crossed his legs and put the notebook on his lap. 

He’d always been a little odd. 

It was quite refreshing to see, actually. This was the kind of thing Louis was glad never changed. As much as Harry used to unnerve him on occasion, he’d always been a little quirky and a lot entertaining, even when he didn’t mean to. 

Like now, covered in dirt and wearing half of his uniform, bending down over his notebook to scribble away. What exactly, Louis couldn’t begin to imagine.

Louis sat on the top board of the fence and watched him. He wondered if Harry already knew what he wanted to do after school. If he was planning on doing his A levels, if he was already set on a uni, a career. Gemma was. Louis’ mum had told him that Gemma was going to school for journalism the following year, so they had similar classes now. She was a year ahead of Louis, and they saw each other at the school library sometimes.

The main difference between them was that Gemma had chosen her A level subjects because she was sure of what she wanted her future to look like. Louis had chosen his based on what classes he’d done well during secondary, which he didn’t particularly like, and turned out that he wasn’t particularly gifted at. Secondary hadn’t been challenging. He’s done well, but he’d also worked less hours, had less responsibilities at home, and life had just been simpler. 

He’d struggled at college since day one, when he sat in his History class and was instantly attacked with names and dates and leveling quizzes. It was the same in every class, just a constant feeling of overwhelm that he never seemed to find the time to sit and sort his way through. 

He wasn’t a very organised person to begin with, and he knew he needed to have a proper schedule to deal with everything, but just the thought of laying it all out made him shut down. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there for, watching Harry write, watching the clouds roll, the tree tops sway. Sitting on a fence wasn’t the most comfortable, but he sort of forgot where he was for a bit, and let his brain smooth out. 

When Harry finally stood back up and turned, Louis was almost as startled as him. 

Harry stumbled back a step in surprise, and then jumped forward with a squawk, as if he’d stepped on lava. His face went red, and he pushed his fringe off his forehead, only for it to flop back with a little bounce. 

“Hey,” Louis told him, not really sure what else to say. 

“Hi,” Harry replied, the sound barely carrying. There were several yards between them. “Um, were you… how long were you sitting there?”

“Just got here,” Louis lied.

“Oh.” Harry looked over at his house and back at Louis. “Were you looking for Gemma?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“I don’t think she’s home yet,” Harry said, and Louis couldn’t tell if it was a dismissal or not. It certainly wasn't an invitation for tea inside. 

“Oh. Well,” Louis trailed off, trying to think of something he could say so he’d be allowed to stay where he was without making it weird. “I’ll wait for her, then.”

“Alright,” Harry said, stretching the word. “You’ll just… sit there?”

“Yeah, why not.” His bum was falling asleep, but Louis could deal.

“Alright.”

Harry seemed to hesitate for a second before making up his mind and turning towards his house. It was darker than it had been when Louis first got there, and the street lamps were starting to turn on along the road. He should go home soon, but he still felt something heavy in his chest that he didn’t want to bring into his house. He could sit around until it got too cold, or until his mum rang him, whichever happened first. 

He was making himself comfortable, trying to wiggle along the fence so he could rest back against a post, when Harry’s voice startled him.

“You can wait inside,” Harry said, and Louis jumped and his bum slid off the board and he screamed as he went down, landing on the ground with a thud. 

“Ow,” he said, lying on his back and staring up at the sky. He could hear Harry laughing, loud and ridiculous, and his own mouth twitched. 

“Are you okay?” Louis heard Harry ask between giggles. 

“Dunno,” Louis replied as he sat up on his elbows. He looked over his shoulder at Harry, who was standing a lot closer than before. “Would you be laughing if I’d broken something?”

“Did you?” Harry asked with a grin. Louis was a bit mesmerized seeing that smile on this older, slightly off-looking Harry. It was the same smile, dimple and all, that used to be permanently glued to Harry’s face when he was a kid. That was, when he wasn’t crying. Harry used to be a big crier, Louis remembered. 

“I think I’m good,” Louis said, waving his arms and patting down his legs before climbing to his feet, dignity more or less intact, if not a little bruised. “So, I can wait inside, then?”

“Bring your bike in,” Harry said, and then added, “if you want.”

Louis did, and left it just off the driveway, inside the gate. 

Then he grabbed his bag and followed Harry into the house. 

Louis knew Harry’s house almost as well as he knew his own. He knew the old-fashioned wallpaper, the old hardwood floor that used to leave splinters on his feet, the collection of picture frames on every wall. He glanced at them as he followed Harry towards the kitchen, and saw a couple of newer photos. Older Gemma and older Harry at a beach somewhere, Anne and Robin in front of a Christmas tree. But he also saw pictures he remembered from when he used to explore the house during games. Some pictures were even duplicates of ones hanging in his own house, taken by his mum.

The kitchen, when they reached it, was exactly as Louis remembered. Same curtains, same breakfast nook under the window, same chicken-shaped cosy covering the kettle. Some appliances looked new, but other than that, it felt a bit like stepping back in time. 

Louis’ house hadn’t remained the same as when he was a kid — there were too many little girls living there for it to survive untouched. His mum always said that she’d had to choose between nice things and small children, and she’d chosen children. It basically meant that they wouldn’t get a new sofa or a nicer telly until the twins were old enough not to leave sticky handprints everywhere. If Harry went into Louis’ house now, it wouldn’t look like he’d stepped back in time. It would just look run-down. 

“Want some tea or something?” Harry asked, already opening a cupboard and taking out two cups. 

“Sure,” Louis said, wandering around to look at a row of what looked like ceramic cats on the edge of the window. He didn’t remember those, though he remembered an actual cat. 

Harry was puttering around by the counter, his back to Louis, deafeningly quiet. 

Louis hadn’t been alone with Harry since they were kids. He couldn’t remember what they used to talk about, but he did remember that they hardly ever lacked topics of conversation, mostly because Harry was always going on about something or other.

Thinking back, it was as if Harry had always been really, really into something. Louis had his bands that he liked, and his team, but he didn’t live and breathe them. He had never been a proper fan of things. Not an intense one like Harry, at least. He sort of wondered what was Harry’s thing now, but he wasn’t sure how to ask. 

“So, where’s your cat?” he asked instead, which seemed safer until he realised that the last time Louis had seen the cat was close to six years before, so he might have opened up with a slightly darker topic than he wanted.

“She’s upstairs somewhere. She’s getting older so she stays, like, in one place a lot.”

“Mmh.”

“Mum wants to get a kitten,” Harry added, sounding almost like he was offering something up. Louis looked at him, his back and his saggy joggers, still covered in dirt. 

It struck him that Harry still looked quite young. He was of a height with Louis, and his voice was deeper, but there was a shyness there still. 

He couldn’t help but find it cute, but he instantly shut that thought down. 

It didn’t take much for Louis to find boys cute. It was something he and Lottie had in common, actually. The problem was that it was harmless on a nine-year-old girl, but complicated for seventeen-year-old Louis.

“She really likes cats,” Harry said, almost a mumble, and Louis realised he’d been quiet for a few seconds too long. 

“Oh, yeah, saw the little… statues over here.” He gestured at the cat figurines. Harry looked over and smiled.

“I made those for her,” he said. 

“Well, they do look a little wonky.”

“Hey!” Harry cried, but he was smiling as he brought two steaming cups of tea over to the table. Louis sat down on the bench by the window, leaving Harry to sit on a chair, but not before he got the milk from the fridge. Louis doubted Harry remembered how he took his tea, but he still found himself smiling down at his red, firetruck-themed cup — it was the one he used when he visited as a kid. 

“So,” Harry said after a moment of not-so-awkward silence, “how’s work?”

“Work’s work. Nothing terribly exciting about it, really.”

“I’m… I started working, too. Last month.”

Louis knew that. He’d heard his mum talking about it, but hadn’t thought much of it. Most people their age had jobs — people in their village weren’t exactly swimming in it, and most kids took odd jobs that paid shit but allowed them to afford going out once in a while. 

“Just Sundays for now, but I’ll do it full time during the summer.”

“That’s good!” Louis said, because Harry sounded quite proud of himself. “Congratulations on your first real job, I guess. Hope it’s more exciting than mine.”

“It’s not my first job, I had a paper route for like a whole year before.”

“Oh, that’s right! Didn't you fall into the creek?”

“That was only one time and I hardly ruined any papers.”

Louis laughed and took a sip of his tea. He could feel his shoulders unlocking and his body sagging a bit. There was something just familiar and soothing about sitting in Harry’s kitchen. It made him regret he’d ever stopped visiting.

“So where’s this new job?”

Harry told him about working the till at the bakery close to the church in town. He told him that old ladies tipped really well, and that he got to take home sweets because the owners liked him. He said that he hoped to stay there for as long as possible to be able to save for a car, though at first he was saving for a trip, and before that he’d just wanted to get a job to buy his mum a birthday present. It gave Louis the impression that he would change his mind about what to get with his money at least ten more times before his next pay. 

Louis had been at his job for over three years now, and he hadn’t managed to save a dime. He gave most of it to his mum, even though she never spent it, and the rest he pocketed. It usually lasted him until a few days before he got paid again, but he got enough tips to make do until then. Every time he told someone how long he’d been working in the same place, they always praised his wonderful work ethic. Told him how he was probably so responsible and reliable. The truth was that Louis couldn't be arsed to find something else when the options were kinda depressing. Besides, his job hardly required him to use his head much, so it felt safe and easy at the same time as it felt numbing and hopeless, but he did his best not to think about that. 

Harry was different. He’d always been passionate — if he said he was going to save for a car, or a trip to India, or a rocketship, then he’d probably do it.

Maybe Louis needed to find his passion. It sounded cheesy in his head, but most people had aspirations, didn’t they? They had dreams. Mr Wallace seemed to think Louis was a blockhead who couldn’t see himself anywhere beyond their tiny town, happy packing groceries for other people for the rest of his life because he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. 

Louis wanted very badly to prove him wrong. At least he felt passionate about that. 

“Why were you looking for Gemma?” Harry asked and Louis blinked at him before he remembered his little fib. 

“Oh, you know,” he answered, as vaguely as possible, hoping Harry wouldn’t ask.

“School stuff?” Harry asked, of course. The way he stared at Louis, as if he was hanging onto his every breath, was the same as it always had been. 

“Sure, school stuff.”

“Is she tutoring you?”

Louis knew Gemma tutored primary school kids. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Harry thinking he would be one of his sister’s students. He already felt like shit about school in general, he didn’t think it was physically possible to feel worse about himself at the moment, so he only shrugged and hoped Harry dropped it. 

Of course he didn’t. Louis was starting to remember more clearly what it was like to have Harry's attention solely focused on him. 

“You’re not… dating. Are you?” Harry asked, a furrow between his brows. 

Louis laughed, “What if we were?”

“I thought… I mean, you’re, like, you know… you, you like, don’t…um, like girls.” His face had gone quite red. 

“Wow,” Louis said and took a sip of his tea. “That took you a minute. You’re allowed to say that I’m gay.”

Harry looked down at his cup.

“I didnt wanna offend you or something.”

“Why would that offend me?”

Harry shrugged. 

Louis had never really come out. Not officially. He’d never had a big realisation, or anything like that. He wasn’t sure he’d ever  _ realised _ anything at all. He’d just always known. He was quite sure he knew by the time he was ten.  _ Definitely _ by twelve. But just like his penchant for crying, he didn’t go around flaunting it in people’s faces. Unlike his penchant for crying, though, he didn’t hide it.

It wasn’t surprising that Harry knew that he was gay — though it was more in theory than anything else, such were the drawbacks of living in a small town. Saving a few discrete snogs here and there and some hurried under-the-clothes touching, Louis was sadly lacking serious experience. 

Another reason to finish school and get the hell out of that place. 

Harry himself had always given Louis a  _ feeling, _ but Louis could never be sure. Most of Harry’s friends had always been girls, and there used to be something a little campy about him when he was younger. Something that used to get him bullied, now that Louis remembered. Or at least laughed at. He also used to stare at Louis quite a lot, even after they stopped spending time together. 

Harry’d  _ also _ had several girlfriends, however, according to Louis’ mum. Now, Louis knew that that didn’t mean anything, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up about another gay kid living in close proximity to him, either, so he kept the girlfriends firmly in mind.

“I’m not dating your sister, Harry,” Louis said, suddenly tired. “Just had a shit day and didn’t want to go home.”

“Oh,” Harry said, still looking down, fiddling with the leather bands he wore around his wrist. “What happened?”

Louis sighed, throwing his head back. Maybe if he overacted, he wouldn’t feel like crying. It usually worked. 

“Had a meeting with one of my teachers, heard some hard truths, you know how it goes.”

Frowning, Harry met Louis’ eye. Louis had never noticed before that Harry’s eyes were so big. Or quite as green as they looked right then. Something about the way he frowned at Louis was still familiar, though. Piercing and a little disquieting, a lot heavy. 

“What hard truths?” he asked. It was Louis’ turn to look down. 

He shrugged.

“That I’m beyond help? That it’s a good thing I have no plans for my future because I won’t amount to anything anyway?” He was embarrassed of the way his voice cracked at the last word, but his eyes were dry, so mission accomplished. 

“He can’t say that to you,” Harry said. 

“Well, you go tell him that.”

Silence stretched for a few seconds, Louis sipping at his tea, feeling Harry’s eyes on him but refusing to look back. This was the sort of talk he’d wanted to avoid by not going home, but he was still angry enough he couldn’t keep quiet about it if asked. 

“You don’t have plans for the future?” Harry asked eventually, his tone slightly tentative. Louis looked at him out of the corner of his eye, and softened at Harry’s earnest look. His shoulders drooped again, and he leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table. 

“I’m only seventeen,” he said. “How am I supposed to know what I want to be doing thirty years from now?”

“I think you’re allowed to change your mind,” were Harry’s wise words in reply, and Louis rolled his eyes. 

“You don’t understand ‘cause you’re the youngest. Isn’t Gemma bricking it about uni?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, well I bet she is. And that still wouldn’t be the same. I have four little sisters at home that rely on me, you know. I gotta set an example.”

“I think you’re a good brother.”

Again, that earnestness in Harry’s voice that made Louis’ prickles retract. Louis almost wanted to think of him as sweet, but dismissed the thought quickly. 

“Maybe you should be a teacher just to show him what a good one looks like,” Harry went on, sounding grumpy now, and Louis was ready to dismiss that as well, but instead it was as if his heart gave a little lurch at the words, and he thought,  _ maybe.  _

Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. It didn’t make his brain crawl, at least, like other possibilities did. 

“What about you?” Louis asked, ready to take the focus off him. 

“What about me?”

“What d’you wanna do when you grow up? I haven’t asked you that in a long time. Last time was… painter? Only the house kind, not the, like, picture kind.”

“When was that?” Harry asked, one side of his mouth going up.

“Well, you were shorter. Had less hair.”

Harry’s hand flew to his head. He messed with his floppy fringe, biting his lip, and Louis huffed out a laugh. 

“I’m not saying it looks bad, you know.” 

“It does. I don’t really know what to do with it.”

“Well, I mean. Fifteen’s kinda the bad hair age, isn’t it? Mine was pretty tragic.”

“It wasn’t,” Harry said quickly, eyes flicking down and back up as his cheeks went pink. “I liked it.”

“Cheers, mate,” Louis laughed, even as he felt his neck go hot. Harry’s awkwardness seemed to be contagious — Louis wasn’t usually this weird. “Didn’t know you noticed.”

Harry’s cheeks went from pink to red, and now Louis was embarrassed for him. 

He was also a little thrilled to be making Harry squirm. 

He ploughed on. 

“So, you don’t want to be a house painter anymore?” 

“Um, no, probably not.”

“Any other ideas?”

Harry chewed on his lip a bit more, looking at Louis before he seemed to decide to answer.

“I like gardening? Like, I think I like it. I’m trying it out,” Harry said, looking Louis in the eye, more confident even though he was still blushing down his neck. 

“Is that what you were doing before? Lying on the ground?”

Harry laughed a loud, uncomfortable laugh. 

“I was checking to see if anything was growing,” he said. “I planted some flowers and it said online that I should see like, little sprouts by now. There’s this website...” Harry went on a bit, and Louis kind of checked out from the conversation. He focused on the cadence of Harry’s speech instead, slow and evenly paced — nothing like it’d been when they were kids, when Harry speaking about anything he was excited about was like turning on a lawn mower and hearing it rumble on and on and on at high speed, words tumbling together. 

But Louis could still tell Harry was excited about his flowers because his eyes sparkled just like they used to. He didn’t pay attention to what Harry was saying about soil and about why he wanted to plant seeds instead of from one of his mum’s potted flowers. He did find himself thinking about Mr Wallace again, and his doughy face and the way he’d looked down his nose at Louis, handing him back his marks from his last exam, smiling his small, mean smile and making Louis smile back when he basically called him worthless.

The rumble of Harry’s voice quieted, and Louis looked up to see him fiddling with the bands around his wrist again. He had no idea what Harry had been saying, and he felt a little pang of guilt for not paying attention. 

“I’ll probably be a lawyer or something,” Harry said, more subdued now. 

“So, no gardener or florist or anything like that?” 

Harry shrugged.

“That’s just a hobby. My, um, you know.” Louis had no idea what he meant. “I’ll go for something more serious, probably.”

“Alright,” Louis told him. It made sense. If Harry was planning on leaving for a bigger place, he’d have to think of a bigger career. And if he was anything like Gemma, then he’d probably make it big. He had the brains, at least. He could afford to think big. 

“You could think of options,” Harry said, and Louis frowned, confused. 

“Options?”

“Of like, what you’d like to be doing thirty years from now.” Oh, they were back to Louis now. 

“I can’t think that far ahead,” Louis sighed, and took a sip of his tea. It’d gone cold, but it was still good. 

“Ten years?”

“There’s no point if I don’t even know if I’ll graduate.”

“Five years.”

Louis put his mug down with a clunk, and saw Harry’s eyes go wide at the sound. But before Louis could tell him to fuck off, Harry started talking again.

“I’ve been making lists,” he said. “Gemma taught me. Like, of chores or of homework or whatever. I made one of the albums I want to listen to this summer, and I like to, um, scratch stuff off as I do them. We could, or  _ you _ could write one of the things you want to be doing in thirty years. Or ten or five.”

Louis slumped in his seat as Harry grabbed the spiral notebook he’d been holding before and opened it. He had to turn several pages to find space to write, all Louis could see was his neat writing, what looked like doodles of flowers on the margins and little annotations in coloured pens. He really was a weirdo, and Louis was annoyed enough he didn’t feel guilty thinking that. 

“Just tell me stuff you like, we’ll go from there.”

“You’re not used to being told no, are you?”

“I just think it’ll help,” Harry argued, cheeks pinking again. 

“I’m not asking for help, am I,” Louis grumbled and Harry chewed on his lip in silence for a moment, before he bent over his notebook and started scribbling away. 

Louis lasted all of a minute before he had to lean forward to peek. Harry’s writing was round and clear even upside down, and Louis read the words FOOTBALL, GREEN DAY, RED before he sat back down with a laugh. 

“What the hell are you writing?”

“Stuff you like,” Harry said, eyes on the page, and Louis laughed again. He crossed his arms on the table and dropped his head on them.

“What do you even know?”

Harry didn’t reply, and the sound of pen scratching on paper didn’t stop. Really, what did Harry know. They hadn’t properly spoken in years, and even back when they did it wasn’t like they’d had very deep conversations — they were kids. Louis was pretty sure they mostly argued about what games they were going to play and which Power Ranger was the best one. 

And yet Harry didn’t stop writing for a while, and when Louis peeked again from where he was hiding his face in his arms, Harry looked completely focused, just as he’d looked sitting on the ground outside, inspecting his little flower project. 

“What would you like to do after school?” Harry asked then, eyes on the paper. 

“Thought the problem was I don’t bloody know.”

“Yeah but, like if you could do anything and grades and money didn’t matter.”

Well, that was a useless exercise, thought Louis. And then he gave himself a moment, and he still didn’t know. 

“Just… finish school. That’s my main goal. So, I’d like it to  _ be _ an after school before I can decide what to do then.”

“Alright,” Harry mumbled, and wrote something down. “My mum says I don’t have to decide right away just because Gemma did.”

“That’s nice,” Louis said, resting his cheek on his arms and looking out at the kitchen. The sun was mostly set and the room looked a little gloomy. He should have been thinking about going home, but he was still reluctant to face his mum. His sisters were probably about to take their baths, maybe they were playing outside and Louis would be able to see them if he looked out the window behind him. It was hard to imagine he wouldn’t be able to hear them, though, with how loud they could get. 

“Here,” Harry said, and Louis heard the sound of paper being ripped before he felt a soft nudge on the top of his head. 

Harry was holding the list out, and Louis took it with a sigh to let him know that he was doing so against his will and only to humour him. Then he read it, and he couldn’t stop the smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth. 

There were three lists on the paper, one slightly outdated one of things Harry thought Louis liked (such as football, Green Day, the colour red, spending time with his friends, making up games for his sisters, drama club back in Year 10), one of Louis’ goals (finish school, figure out what to do after), and one of how to achieve his goals (pass all his classes). 

Louis didn’t see how Harry thought it’d be helpful to write down what was already in Louis' head all day every day, but he’d written it so neatly and carefully that he didn’t want to put him down by being a twat about it. Still, he wasn’t sure what to do from there.

“See, it’s easier to see it written down,” Harry said. 

“Sure,” Louis told him.

“So you can use the first list to try and think what you want to be,” Harry went on. “Like, if someone made a list of stuff they like and it was like, um, animals and nature, they could look into being a vet, or a biologist, or stuff like that.”

“What d’you reckon I can look into with this list? The colour red and spending time with friends. Think there’s a career there?”

Harry blushed again, and Louis wanted to bite his tongue off. He put a little more venom in his words than he meant. 

“No, but you can write a better list if you want,” Harry said. “And, like, you have football and making up games for little kids. You could coach, or something. You like music, you did drama for a bit. Things like that. The red thing was, um, it was supposed to be a joke.”

Before Louis could open his mouth to apologise, Harry went on. 

“And as for finishing school, you could make a list of the subjects you need help with the most and focus on those first. Gemma was doing bad in math and she got a tutor. You could do that.”

“I’d have to pay them, wouldn’t I?”

“Um—”

“It’s okay, Harry. Thank you, this is nice. I’ll just figure it out myself, alright?”

“Okay, but—”

There was a rattle from somewhere in the house then, and the slam of a door. Then Anne’s voice drifted in from the front hall, “Anyone home?”

“In the kitchen,” Harry called back. Louis got to his feet, picking up his mug. When Anne came in, she looked surprised to see Louis for half a second before she smiled. Louis had never noticed before how much alike Harry and his mum looked.

He didn’t stay long after that. Anne hugged him hello and offered him a second cup of tea, though she’d looked amused finding them having tea on their own. She asked if he wanted to stay for supper, but the amount of time Louis could justify staying away from home was up and he needed to go help out. Harry stayed sitting where he was, fiddling with his notebook while Anne and Louis chatted (about Louis’ sisters, about Louis’ mum, about school) and then stood up when Louis was ready to go, and handed him the list back. 

With Anne’s eyes on him and Harry standing there looking unsure, Louis didn’t have much of a choice but to take the bloody thing. He stuffed it in his pocket and went out the back door. Instead of rounding the house and going back to the road, he walked towards the fence and climbed over it like he’d done a million times before. The wood was more worn out than he remembered, and the boards felt shorter, easier to go over. He walked the rest of the way feeling a little off kilter — it had been a strange day all around. 

.

The following day was a Saturday, and Louis woke up to his sisters bickering outside his bedroom door. They had switched rooms when the twins were born, and Louis had given up his big bedroom in exchange for one that felt more like a cupboard sometimes. He could fit his bed and a dresser and not much else, but at least he didn’t have to share with anyone. All four of his sisters stayed in his old room, and their mum had been talking about building an extension for years now, but Louis knew that wouldn’t happen until the girls were a little older and couldn’t bear to share anymore. 

Saturdays were busy days for Louis because his mum worked back-to-back shifts and was away all day, and since Mark had moved out indefinitely a couple of months back, it was just him to entertain everyone and keep them fed and clean and unharmed. 

He squinted his eyes open just in time to see Lottie popping her head into his room. 

“Can we have breakfast yet?” she asked in a whisper that was rather pointless when the rest of the girls were fighting loudly behind her. Louis rubbed his face against his pillow and sat up.

“Give me a minute,” he said, and Lottie slipped back out. By the sound of it, they all stayed just outside his door waiting for him, and Louis sighed to himself as he searched for something to put over his underwear. 

By the time he was standing in the kitchen making toast for everyone, he’d given two piggyback rides up and down the stairs, had had an argument about how much cocoa powder was appropriate for a seven-year-old to have in her milk, and had intervened in a game of footsie that had been quickly turning violent. His eyes still felt bleary and he hadn’t even cleaned his teeth yet, but he was awake enough not to burn the kitchen down. 

Still, when the doorbell went off, he thought he was dreaming. Only the girls pushing each other out of the way to get to the door first alerted him that he wasn’t hearing things. He followed them, mostly to keep the twins from going outside in their knickers, and found Gemma at their door.

Louis instantly knew Harry had something to do with it, the little meddler. 

“Hey, Louis,” she said, looking up from Fizzy, who was clinging to her waist. “I brought your bike over.”

“Oh.” Louis ran a hand through his hair. He’d left his bike in Harry’s driveway the day before. “Thanks, I could’ve gone get it.” 

“I was coming over anyway,” Gemma said, stepping inside and through the little girl barrier trying to trip her up. “Harry said you need help with some school work.”

Fuck him, thought Louis. 

“He must’ve misunderstood,” he said, sarcasm so thick even the girls could probably pick up on it, “I said I  _ didn’t _ need help.”

“What courses are you taking?” Gemma asked, ignoring Louis in favour of tickling the twins until they let go of her legs. 

Louis rubbed his sleepy eyes and turned on his heel. He needed tea for this, and the toast was probably burning. He heard the thundering sound of tiny feet following him as he flicked the kettle on, and he turned to watch the girls sitting back in their places, Gemma pulling a chair out to join them. He turned back. 

They had breakfast in the typical Tomlinson family way — loudly and messily — though the girls were pretty distracted by the novelty that was Gemma Styles sitting at the table with them, so they bickered less than usual. Gemma had never spent time with the girls the way Harry had growing up. She was nice but distant, older even than Louis, so usually off doing older kid stuff while Louis, Harry and Lottie were stuck trying to come up with games they could all play together. When Fizzy came along, Louis remembered Harry being eager to include her as well, though he also remembered Harry was always quick to dismiss her and Lottie as babies every time Louis tried to leave the three of them on their own. 

When Louis got older, and he and Harry grew apart, Harry still spent time with Lottie. Louis used to see them playing together outside sometimes when he came home from being out with friends. He’d lost the urge to join them, but he still thought it was cute to see Harry running around with his little sister and making her laugh.

Gemma was sweet with the girls, but they were more in awe of her than comfortable and familiar. It didn’t keep them from trying to climb over her or to try to talk her ear off about her makeup or the colour she’d dyed her hair. 

Louis let them be. 

He had the small hope that Gemma would drink her tea and leave, overwhelmed by the girls’ attention. But she remained calm and helped clear the dishes when they were all done. Then she brought her bookbag in from the front room and set it on the table with a definitive thump.

“We should make a list of the subjects you’re struggling with,” she said, and Louis groaned.

“What is it with you and lists?” 

“Pardon?” she said, books halfway out of her bag. 

“Your brother already forced a list on me yesterday.”

“Oh.” She finished setting everything down. “Do you have it with you?”

“No,” he said, looking up at the ceiling when there was a bang from upstairs. He waited to see if anyone started crying, and when there was nothing, he turned back to Gemma. “It wasn’t that kind of list.”

“Well, we should write one down. It’ll help.”

“Today’s not really a good day,” he said. “I’ve got to keep an eye on the girls. And they’ll be running around here soon enough. Can’t really study when they’re all awake and my mum’s out.”

“What courses are you taking?”

Louis told her and Gemma wrote them down. He was on three days a week this year, taking four courses a day. He knew it wasn’t that bad — Gemma probably had even more classes since she was a year ahead. The fact that Louis found three days a week overwhelming was embarrassing, but he didn’t particularly care at the moment. He was more annoyed than ashamed. 

“I took most of these last year. We could study together a couple of times a week, I’m sure I can still help you if you have questions.”   


“I can’t afford a tutor right now,” Louis told her.

“It’s not tutoring, we’ll just do course work together, I’ve got loads, too. We’ll schedule it around both our jobs, it’ll be fine. I barely passed last year, so. It’s good to have help.”

Louis hesitated. It sounded too good to be true, and he didn’t want to get his hopes up. He could still hear Mr Wallace’s words clear as day in his head, and the urge to prove him wrong was almost as strong as his sense of responsibility, but not quite. 

“I can’t leave my mum alone with the girls that often,” he said, looking down at Gemma’s writing. It was narrower than Harry’s, with a little more flourish. “Two of them still need help using the loo sometimes.”

Gemma laughed, putting her pen down. She moved her fringe to the side, the same kind of fringe most girls were wearing lately and the same kind Louis was trying to grow out. He thought it looked good on some boys. 

“Harry’s volunteered to babysit,” she said, and Louis’ eyebrows went up. “He told me to tell you.”

“Did he?”

“He’s got tons of free time, and he’s been killing too many of Mum’s plants lately. She’ll be glad he’s out of her garden for a bit.”

Louis laughed. 

“I can go get him now to look after the girls, to make sure they won’t eat him alive,” Gemma offered and Louis rubbed the back of his neck, thinking of the pile of textbooks perched on his dresser, the sheets of coursework shoved in his bag that he hadn’t thought he’d even touch that weekend. He nodded. 

“Fine, alright. Thanks.”

.

Gemma left through the mudroom and came back twenty minutes later with a sheepish-looking Harry in tow. Louis let them in without a word and let Harry go upstairs, where the girls already knew he was coming and were under strict instructions to torture him as much as possible. Louis heard them squealing when Harry climbed up the stairs, but other than the odd footfall on the ceiling or the sudden explosion of muffled giggles, he didn’t hear from them again until lunchtime. 

Louis and Gemma set the table in the dining room because the kitchen table was piled up with books. Louis put together a couple of frozen pizzas and some veggies, and then they called the kindergarten class downstairs. They stomped down like the group of starving little beasts they were, Harry tailing them and looking happier than Louis had been expecting.

“What were you doing up there?” Louis asked, putting pizza portions in his sisters’ plates and ignoring their protests when he added salad on the side. 

“We made bracelets, look!” Lottie said, and the four girls plus Harry held their arms out to show their new bracelets. Louis inspected each of them carefully, all chunky things with beads of every size and every shade of pink, and praised them accordingly. Harry had several on his wrists, mingling with his leather bands. He looked a little embarrassed, but Louis could guess each of the girls had made one for him, and the fact that he was wearing them made his anger ebb a bit. 

“Pizza?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” said Harry, and sat down in the chair between the twins when they pulled him down on it.

Louis’ head was still swimming with coursework while he ate. He’d dug up the schedule they’d given him the first week of class and he had two exams coming up that he felt he wasn’t ready for. But making a little list with all the important dates coming up had sort of helped, and Gemma had brought over her notes from last year, which looked so tidy and organised Louis felt a huge weight lifted off of him.

After the pizza, the girls dragged Harry outside to their dingy playground set he was too big to use, and Louis spied the twins out the window forcing him to push them in the swings while Fizzy yelled at him to watch her go down the slide and Lottie climbed up the monkey bars. Better him than Louis, Louis thought, and then put some extra water for tea in the kettle so that Harry would have a warm cuppa when he came back inside. 

Gemma and Harry spent all day at Louis’ house, and Louis felt like he did more school work in one day than he’d done all of the year before. He ignored his friends’ calls and tried not to think about their plans for the rest of the weekend — he was determined to try his best for as long as his anger-fuelled determination lasted him. 

Harry looked a little worse for wear by the time he was saying goodbye to the girls.There was grass in his hair and his clothes, already oddly oversized and ill-fitting, looked stretched and stained from playing around outside most of the afternoon. Louis and Gemma set up their next study session, and Harry agreed to come over to help out with more enthusiasm than Louis had been expecting. 

He also looked stupidly dimply and smug, but Louis didn’t comment on it. He was feeling quite good about himself, too.

His mum came home when the girls were already in their pyjamas, all of them bathed and fed. They told her about their day, Fizzy showed off a pretty spectacular scrape on her knee, and Lottie put her hands out to display her neon green nails. 

“We wanted to paint Harry’s but he said  _ absolutely not,” _ she said in a good enough imitation of Harry’s drawl. The twins’ nails were purple and red, and Louis could perfectly picture Harry hunched over trying to carefully paint their tiny nails without making a mess of their hands. “He said not even blue.”

“You should all hold him down next time,” Louis said from the door of the girls’ room, and they all giggled. 

He went to bed feeling accomplished and exhausted, but not before he checked his email on the family computer and messaged Roy, explaining why he’d been missing all day. 

When Roy replied that there was a party happening the following weekend, Louis agreed to go without thinking too much about it. And later, when he was already drifting off, he thought he’d invite Harry and Gemma along. Gemma would probably say no — Louis didn’t think she was much of a party person. But Harry would go. They’d bumped into each other at different parties over the years. The first time Louis saw Harry with a drink in his hand he’d had the urge to slap it out of his hand. Harry had been something like fourteen then and his voice hadn’t even dropped yet. But Louis had gotten used to seeing him among the crowd on Saturday nights, and eventually had stopped keeping track of him. 

It’d be nice to wave at each other again if they caught each other’s eye across the room. It used to make Harry so happy when Louis did it when they were kids, it was obvious in the way his whole face used to light up, and how he would wave back with enough force to pop his shoulder out of its socket. 

If Louis passed Mr Wallace’s next exam, Louis would make sure Harry was the happiest fucking kid in town, he promised. And then he fell asleep.


	5. Coming Out

Harry didn’t have a room of his own in his dad’s new flat. He tried not to mind, but he wasn’t used to sharing, especially with two boys under eight, so he couldn’t help being a little grumpy about it. He sat in the extra bed they’d set up for him and hunched over his journal, doodling stars and little boxes on the corner of a page half-filled with his writing.

On the other end of the room, both his little brothers were wrestling each other, grappling and rolling all over the floor, their limbs smacking against the furniture.

Harry had tried to make them stop earlier, but they had, unsurprisingly, ignored him.

“They’re proper boys, a rowdy bunch,” his dad had said when Harry had gone to him. “Let them tire themselves out.”

Every time his dad said stuff like that, Harry felt that he was talking about him somehow. The boys were proper rowdy, unlike Harry. The boys had gotten medals for several sports at school, unlike Harry. The boys loved to spend time with their old man, watching rugby matches on the telly and going to the park to practise passes and tackles, coming back covered in mud and leaving track marks all over the floor, unlike Harry, who wasn’t even sure he was invited.

He felt a little how Gemma must have felt when they were younger and his dad still hadn’t given up on him, when they would go on father and son outings all the time. Back then, Harry was always thrilled with every bit of attention his dad paid him, and he never thought twice about his mom and sister staying behind, or why they did.

He’d spent the last month of summer exclusively thinking about it (and a slew of other things that came attached to every vague memory of those days) and every little interaction with his dad was like a tiny light being turned on in places in his mind he hadn’t remembered were there.

He didn’t visit often. Not only was the city more than two hours away by car, but he also didn’t particularly enjoy coming down to his dad’s place, where he felt out of place and like he was staying with strangers instead of family.

His brothers didn’t even know him. Every time Harry came down he had to be introduced all over again.

“Remember Harry?” his dad’s wife would say. “He’s your half brother.”

Harry felt that adding the ‘half’ bit was unnecessary. Louis didn’t talk about his sisters being his half anything. They were his sisters even though they had different dads, and Harry thought it should be the same with his own dad’s kids. It just made him feel more out of place — like a guest that no one really wanted around but had to endure anyway.

Visiting his dad involved a lot of staying in the boys’ room and only leaving to eat or go to the loo. Sometimes he would sit in the living room with everyone else to watch a film, but he wasn’t comfortable enough to sit on the sofa with them, so he sat by himself on an armchair, and felt even more lonely and left out.

It wasn’t so bad when Gemma was there, but she’d decided she wasn’t going to make the trip this time. She was in her second year of uni and was allowed to make those kinds of decisions. Harry, though, still had to visit once a month and suck it up. It was funny how he didn’t feel half as grown-up as he always thought he would at eighteen. 

He’d tried to sleep in the room Gemma usually took the first night he’d been over, since it’d be empty anyway, but his dad had said no.

“Spend some time with the boys, maybe they’ll rub off on you.”

Over the years, Harry had learned what his dad meant when he said things like that. When he was younger, he used to think his dad just didn’t like him. It used to make him feel like his heart was breaking, and he used to try so hard to do anything he could think of to change his dad’s mind. He used to feel like everything he did was wrong, because everything he did made his dad lose his temper.

If Harry sang to himself, his dad shushed him. If Harry cried, his dad told him to stop acting like a little girl. If he played, he played wrong. If he watched a film, it was the wrong film. His friends were wrong and his clothes were wrong and everything he said was wrong, wrong, wrong.

His dad had left when Harry was very young. He barely remembered what it was like to live with him every day, and sometimes he wondered what it would be like if he had stayed. What Harry would be like. If his parents had stayed together and his dad hadn’t had more kids who were proper rowdy boys like he’d always wanted. Harry’d probably be as miserable as he was when he visited, only all of the time instead of every once in a while.

On the other end of the room, the boys knocked over a lamp. It fell and landed right on top of one of their heads. Harry heard the thunk all the way from where he was sitting, and a second later there was a loud wail.

His brothers were eight and seven, and they looked nothing like Harry, maybe because Harry looked so much like his mum, and the boys looked a lot like his dad. They were stockier than Harry had been at their age, with blond, close-cropped hair and dark eyes. When they cried, their faces went blotchy and red, and they looked more angry than upset. Eric, who was seven and had told Harry he couldn’t play with them even though Harry hadn’t asked, was holding his head and crying.

Harry was conflicted. It never went over well when he tried to approach the boys, and he’d told them to stop fighting ages ago and they hadn’t listened. But they were also little kids, and that lamp had sounded like it hurt.

Harry put his journal aside and got up. While Eric cried, Josh was still trying to wrestle him as if nothing was wrong. It reminded him a bit of him and Gemma when they were their age, only Gemma always stopped when Harry got hurt (though not when he cried). He was sure he hadn’t been as horrible as Eric and Josh. Surely he hadn’t thrown tantrums when he didn’t get his way. And surely he hadn’t screamed at the top of his lungs when he got upset. He’d remember that. 

Harry really wanted to like his little brothers, but everything about being at his dad’s house was difficult.

“Let me—” he started to say, but was cut off by the door opening and making his heart sort of jump to his throat. It always sent his pulse running, having his dad step in when one of the kids was not being quiet. His dad had never had patience for tears, and his temper was shorter the louder the situation was. Eric was still crying in that high-pitch way of little boys, and Harry stood frozen in the middle of the room.

But instead of getting angry and snapping at Eric to stop, Harry’s dad nudged Josh away and picked Eric up, like maybe he’d suddenly figured out that seven-year-old boys cry sometimes, no matter how rowdy they are. 

Watching them, Harry’s chest felt a little hollow. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or sad or what, but he hated to see his dad being sweet to one of his brothers when he honestly couldn’t think of a single time he’d hugged Harry as a kid.

He must have done — Harry just couldn't remember.

Most of the nice memories he had of his dad were bittersweet - he remembered getting his hair ruffled a lot, but not a kiss on the top of his head, or a compliment that wasn’t weirdly tinged with a hundred layers of condescension or warning or expectations. He remembered going on fishing trips that always filled him with both happiness and anxiety, because he knew he’d get yelled at if he made a mistake (and he would surely make a mistake). For what he’d seen, Eric and Josh acted naturally around their father. Almost as if he’d never even raised his voice at them.

It made Harry jealous, and he hated it.

Harry’d had an enlightening summer. All sorts of things had happened, he’d spent a lot of it coming to terms with several others. One of them was that his dad had been a bit of a bastard when Harry was a kid. Another was that he, being eighteen, should accept that and let it go. It wasn’t as easy as all that. He thought it was unfair that his dad had decided to start to not be so horrible right when Harry was technically an adult. He thought it was unfair that he didn’t have a single pleasant memory with him from when he was a kid, that he’d put so much weight on his dad’s opinion of him back then, that he still did now.

The only thought of opening his mouth right then and telling his dad what he’d been dying to talk about for months was enough to make him feel sick. He could just imagine the face his dad would make, the words he’d say. Harry hadn’t been brave enough to talk to anyone about it yet, and it was mostly because everytime he thought too much about it, he kept hearing his dad’s voice in the back of his mind, calling him a little girl.

Now, in his little brothers' room, Josh was clinging to his dad's leg, trying to trip him. Harry couldn't remember ever being comfortable enough with his dad to do something like that. He’d always been extra careful with him, even when he was dying to give him a hug when he was younger, or wanted desperately to take his hand when they walked together. His mum always held his hand, kissed him, cuddled him. Gemma did too, when she was in the mood to be nice, and Harry probably would have grown up thinking men just didn’t do that sort of thing if it hadn’t been for Louis.

Louis had been the most boyish boy in Harry’s entire world growing up, and for the most part he had seen nothing wrong in indulging Harry when he felt clingy, which was often. Even when he and Louis hadn’t spoken much during Harry’s first few years of secondary, he’d still see Louis hugging his friends, sitting in their laps, doing the sort of things Harry only felt comfortable doing with his girl friends. Well, his girl friends and Ben, but thinking about Ben only made Harry think of the small dilemma he’d had during the summer, so he quickly steered his brain in another direction.

Instead his mind circled back to Louis, the small silver lining of his monthly visits to his dad’s flat.

Louis had moved to the city for uni a year before, but he used to live in a dorm Harry (and anyone who wasn’t family or enrolled in the school) wasn’t allowed to visit. Not that he would have done it much anyway, since during that first year of being independent Louis had spent a lot of time pretending he didn’t know anyone from back home. He’d only written to Harry when he was supposed to be studying for a test and wanted an excuse not to, and then took days to reply to Harry’s embarrassingly quick responses. Harry knew Louis’ family felt similarly abandoned, since he’d been babysitting the girls since he was around fifteen and still did now and they all loved to complain about Louis never visiting unless it was a special holiday. He hadn’t even spent last summer with them, since one of his new uni friends had invited him to his house all the way down in Hastings — Lottie was still angry he’d missed her birthday.

Their mums said it was normal, but Harry’s mum said it with a little glint in her eye, as if daring Harry to try the same thing when he moved out.

For his second year of uni, though, Louis had moved to a proper flat. He’d e-mailed Harry pictures of it (after Harry asked for them) and sent a long paragraph talking about his two flatmates and how they’d played Scrabble to decide which room would be whose, since it was the only game they had because Harry was the only weirdo who had given Louis an old-people board game as a house-warming gift.

Harry had replied that he should be thankful since it had won him the best room, but Louis had deflected. Harry still gave himself a pat on the back — he’d bought and posted the game with his own money, along with a card he thought was hilarious and that Louis hadn’t mentioned. Then Louis said Harry should come visit one of the weekends he had to drive down to stay at his dad’s place, and Harry immediately set a date.

Louis had said okay to Sunday, and Harry could hardly wait for his miserable Saturday of sitting around feeling awkward to be over so he could escape. He’d printed a little map of the best route to take from his dad’s flat to Louis’ back at his house. By now, he had it memorised.

“Is this what you’re doing with your day?” his dad asked then, pulling Harry from his thoughts. Eric was quiet and resting his head on his dad’s shoulder, and Josh was still in his own little fantasy world on the floor, writhing around and fighting with invisible enemies.

“What?” Harry asked, trying not to sound defensive and ending up sounding meek instead.

“There’s a whole city out there, you know, this isn’t the country.”

It took Harry by surprise that his dad would just suggest he go out on his own. Especially because it was nearing six o’clock and Harry had never gone farther than the Tesco around the corner by himself since his dad had moved closer to the city center. The city already felt daunting enough during the day, thinking of going out when it was nearly dark gave him a little nervous thrill — he’d only ever done that with friends before, in big groups, and only in Bradford.

For some reason the idea of going out to find a Costa or something all alone in a place he wasn’t as familiar with felt more scary and exciting than him and his friends trying to sneak into a pub when half of them had still been underaged.

“I’m driving you back first thing in the morning,” his dad went on. “So I’d make good use of my time if I were you.”

“What? Why?” Harry asked, taken aback. His dad usually drove him back Sunday evenings. He was going over to Louis’ at noon, he’d been looking forward to it for a month. He needed to go over to Louis’ because he had to talk to someone before everything burst out of him.

“It’s Myra’s sister's birthday, so I’m already driving north. Or did you want to go with us?” It wasn’t a serious question, and Harry didn’t want to go to his dad’s wife’s sister’s birthday party, but he was still annoyed he hadn’t been asked earlier.

“No,” he said, and then gathered what little courage he could and added, “But I had plans tomorrow.”

“What plans?”

“I was meeting Louis.” Harry knew his dad had a soft spot for Louis. Even if Harry was sure he hadn’t seen Louis since they were in primary, his dad always made all sorts of allowances if he was involved. Sometimes Harry wondered if his dad had ever wished to change families like Harry used to when he was little and wanted Louis to be his brother with every fiber of his being. He remembered his dad always telling him to be more like Louis, to be his friend and act the way he did. The irony of it all was enough to make Harry forget how upset the memory usually made him.

“Well, go meet him now, lad. What else are you doing, doodling in your little book all night?”

“Can I—really?” 

“You’re of age, aren’t you?” His dad said, which, okay, Harry was, but it hadn’t really made his mum treat his curfews with any sort of resiliency, even though she’d gotten teary on his birthday and called him almost an adult. He was still supposed to be back in the house by eleven, and he was still supposed to tell her if he was planning on drinking. “Just be here before ten tomorrow, we’ve got to be there by noon.”

Okay, so apparently Harry was going to stay out all night. It really shouldn't have surprised him that his dad would have no problem with that. What he thought or expected Harry would do with his time, Harry would have rather not know. It was actually sad that he himself had no idea where to go or what to do with his freedom, other than to take the tram to Louis’ place a day early and hope Louis wouldn’t mind.

So that’s what he did.

His dad didn’t ask him to call him when he got there like his mum would have done, but he did give Harry ten quid, so Harry didn’t let the strange disappointed feeling swirling in his stomach overtake him. He pocketed the money, called a goodbye to Myra, and got out as fast as he could.

He had been doing a lot of research lately. Most had to do with stuff he’d had to hide behind incognito windows when he went online, but a lot had been about Manchester. He’d read about cool museums, cool pubs, clubs. He’d stared wide-eyed at a list of musicians who held concerts there, looked at pictures of football stadiums and wondered if Louis had already gone to a game, found something called the Gay Village and wondered if Louis had gone clubbing there, and then closed the window in a huff because it all circled back to the same thing, didn’t it? Harry’s fixations usually did. 

As much research as he had done and as excited he was to explore, the city looked a lot like any other city he’d visited before as soon as he left his dad’s building. The trams were peculiar, but there was no sign of the electric nightlife all the websites had told him about, and most of the people he saw were older, or families with little kids. He couldn’t wait to see what kind of neighbourhood Louis lived in. 

He found the tram stop he knew he needed, got on one with an Oyster card he’d gotten the previous year and had only used once or twice, and then went rattling away towards Louis’ place. 

He knew the way by heart (he had stared at his little map printout long enough) and he knew that, after getting off at his stop, he had a fifteen minute walk ahead of him. Harry started walking as soon as he hopped out onto the pavement, trying to look like he belonged and not to stare at every shop he passed like an awed tourist. He walked down streets that got quieter and emptier the further he got from the main roads, darker as the sun started to go down and clouds started to fill the sky. He wondered if people could tell he wasn’t from there — if there was something about his clothes or his face that let everyone know he lived in an old farmhouse at the end of a dirt path and that their town’s shop still got their eggs from the owners’ chickens. 

He wondered if that made him a target, and picked up the pace. 

He practically ran the last bit of the way, knowing he looked ridiculous but remembering all the comments he’d seen on those websites, about people being mugged, stabbed, or worse. At the back of his mind, he wondered what his dad would say if he did get mugged. Harry couldn’t imagine his dad being very sympathetic, he’d probably say something about it being a rite of passage, and the thought gave him the last push he needed to reach Louis’ building in a sprint. He didn’t want to prove his theory. 

The building door was open, which Harry only realised because he leaned on it for a second to catch his breath and it gave under his weight, nearly sending him toppling into the lobby. He noticed it was a little shoddy as soon as he regained his balance, but then again, a lot of the townhouses he’d walked by on the way seemed to have been in the same state. Louis had told him rent was cheap, so Harry should have assumed that meant the location wasn’t the best. Not that it mattered — having a place to pay rent for had to be brilliant in and of itself, no matter if the wallpaper was peeled in places or whatever.

Louis lived on the second floor. It was an attic flat, he’d said in his email, which Harry wasn’t sure what it meant other than the ceiling probably being slanted like in his bedroom at home. There were two doors that Harry could see on the ground floor, but only one set of stairs, so he climbed up, every step creaking. His heart was beating really fast in his chest for some reason, his palms sweaty. He could hear music coming from several units, muffled voices, and he wondered if Louis was already used to having neighbours so close by when Harry still found it odd when he stayed at his dad’s and he could hear people walking over his head.

The first floor landing was narrow, with a door on each side and a little alcove that seemed to lead to the last stretch of stairs. Harry went that way. It wasn’t like his dad’s building — it was clear that this used to be a single house and that someone had divided it into flats. He wasn’t sure how Louis’ could hold three people in it, since Harry imagined every flat had to be quite small, but he was excited to see for himself.

The last few steps led to a door with a number five painted on it in black. There was no doorbell that Harry could see, so he knocked, trying to stifle the nervous smile that kept trying to creep onto his face.

He hadn’t seen Louis in months, and he didn’t care what Gemma had to say about it, Harry’s town wasn’t the same without him in it. It wasn’t the same going to babysit the girls knowing there was no chance Louis could walk through the door at any moment, and it wasn’t the same seeing some new kid bagging people’s groceries at the shop, looking way too young in the oversized apron. Harry was still getting used to being one of the oldest kids left in his town, what with most of the people who’d been in classes above him having gone off to bigger cities. It was a bit of an understatement where he was from that people got away as soon as they could, some not even bothering to do their A levels and moving away as soon as they were done with secondary.

Harry would have done that himself if his mum had let him.

College was alright, but he wasn’t even sure he would go to uni at all, so for a bit there when he was finishing Year 11 Harry had been ready to hide himself among Louis’ luggage and go off to the city with him. It had been Louis, who hadn’t enjoyed his time at college at all, who had convinced Harry to stop being a knob-head and just get on with it.

“You’ll need your A levels to get a job to buy that Aston Martin you keep ranting about before you’re ninety,” he’d said. At the time, Robin had started teaching Harry how to drive, and he’d been really into cars for a few months. The interest had sort of fizzled out after a while, like it usually happened, but Harry still thought of Louis’ words every time he thought of quitting school to go join a rock band, or to go backpacking through the UK, or any other of the million half-baked plans that got into his head when he least expected.

Lately, though, his head had been a bit of a mess, because every little spark of interest he managed to ignite was quickly smothered by this new, giant ball of uncertainty that he’d amassed during the summer. He just needed to talk and he knew it’d smooth out. He didn’t know why he was so nervous.

When a full minute had passed and he didn’t hear movement inside, Harry knocked again, his fist a little heavier this time. He leaned in close to the door, trying to listen in, and then startled back when the door swung open without warning.

In front of him was someone who was not Louis.

“Hello there,” the guy said. “Is the music too loud?”

Harry could barely hear music coming from inside the flat, a whisper compared to the flats downstairs, so he shook his head, his eyes darting behind the guy’s shoulder.

“Hi, no, um, is Louis in?” he asked, not unlike how he used to do when he climbed over the fence between their houses as soon as the sun was up on weekends and woke Jay up with his relentless knocking.

The guy furrowed his eyebrows, brown eyes narrowing.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen?” Startled, Harry wondered if he’d be asked to show a piece of ID. He had a provisional driving license, but it was back home. All he had on him now was the tenner his dad had given him.

“You don’t sound so sure,” the guy said, and then there was movement behind him, and Harry looked up to see Louis coming through a door. He couldn’t help but grin, even if his heart did a little somersault.

The guy turned around.

“Your date’s here,” he told Louis, and Harry nearly started choking on air, his face burning.

“What are you talking about?” Louis asked. His voice sounded fuller in person after only hearing it through the phone for so long, raspy and quiet and like something that made Harry’s chest heavy for some reason. Then he came closer, and his eyes widened with recognition when they met Harry’s. “Hey, weren’t we meeting tomorrow?”

Skin tingling with inexplicable nerves, Harry nodded, smile still stubbornly in place.

“Yeah, um, my dad’s driving me back first thing in the morning so I thought....”

“Liam, mate, you can stop blocking the door now,” Louis told the guy in front of Harry, whose face scrunched up in apology as he moved to the side. Harry barely paid him any mind, too busy staring at Louis.

He was dressed nicer than Harry had ever seen him, and he had seen him dressed up for prom, in a smart suit, a fresh haircut and a sunny smile on his face. This was a different kind of nice, though — it was jeans that fit snuggly, a dark top that clung, and his hair carefully dishevelled. It was socks that looked new and the spicy scent of perfume or cologne or something unusual that wafted towards Harry when Louis came close. It reminded Harry that it was Saturday night, and Louis had probably been on his way out. 

Harry wasn’t going to mention it if no one else did.

He was quite sure he’d always stared at Louis, even before his big summer revelation, but it suddenly felt different to let his eyes linger, so Harry quickly looked down at his feet even as Louis put his arm around his shoulder in a tight side hug. He let Louis pull him into the flat, careful not to step on his socked feet, and resisted the urge to rest his whole weight on him. 

“That’s Liam,” Louis said, and Harry looked up at the guy. They waved at each other a little awkwardly — Louis’ arm was still around Harry’s shoulders. Sometime in the last few months, Harry had grown a couple of inches taller, and having Louis draped around him felt different than it used to. He wanted to put his own arm around Louis’ waist, but kept both hands firmly down. “And this is Harry. Remember I mentioned him?”

“Your best mate Harry from back home? Once or twice,” Liam said, gently teasing, and Harry bit his lip hard to keep his biggest smile yet at bay. Being called Louis Tomlinson’s best mate had been Harry’s favourite thing since he was like, eight, and hearing it now was just as thrilling as it always had been. He wanted to know what Louis had been saying about him to his flatmates, but for now, he settled with knowing that he hadn’t been calling Harry his annoying neighbour, or the weird kid that used to follow him everywhere, or worse, his sisters’ babysitter.

“Liam, try not to embarrass yourself, please,” Louis said, a little nonsensically, but Harry laughed anyway at Liam’s offended face. He looked like a nice bloke, and Louis had mentioned a Liam in his emails more than he had the other flatmate, so he must have liked him. “You want a tour, Harry?”

Harry nodded.

Louis let go of him to play tour guide. He waited until Harry took his shoes off near the door, since the whole place was carpeted, and then walked him the two steps it took for them to be standing in the middle of the living room.

“Here’s our common area, you can see none of us has an eye for interior design, but it works.” The common area was an uneven little room with a slanted ceiling (just as Harry had predicted), a small sofa that Harry recognised from Louis’ house, and a decent sized telly. There was a paused video game on the screen, and an open can of Red Bull on the floor by the couch. Liam sat back down, picking up a controller. 

“The kitchen’s this way,” Louis went on, guiding Harry through a door that led to the smallest kitchen he’d ever set foot in — there was barely enough room for the both of them to stand inside. It smelled like toast. “The stove’s not working so Liam bought us a hot plate, it’s quite handy. Also, look at the fridge. It looks fake, doesn’t it?”

It did. It was the smallest fridge Harry’d ever seen. Plus, it was mint green. 

“Come on,” Louis said, and pulled Harry back into the little corridor. He pointed to a door. “That’s Liam’s and Matt’s room but it’s not very interesting so we’ll skip it. Oh, the loo’s through there, though, in case you need it.”

“They share?” Harry asked. 

“Yeah, s’the biggest room, so. Liam usually sleeps out on the sofa if Matt brings someone over.”

“What about the bathroom?”

“If the room’s busy, we hold it in. But it’s not so bad. Matt’s never here on weekends and Liam’s a polite boy who doesn’t bring girls over, since it’s a bit of a tip.”

“It’s not,” Harry argued. It really wasn’t. Everything looked clean and tidy — at least the rooms Harry had seen. 

“Come on, saved the best for last.” 

Harry followed Louis up two little steps and around a tiny corridor and there was the last door. It was ajar, and looked short enough they would need to duck to go through it. 

“I think it used to be for storage or something,” Louis said. It was more of a big cupboard than a bedroom. There was a wardrobe and single bed and that was it. Over the bed, though, was a huge triangular window with a sil deep enough to act as a desk, as Louis had clearly been doing, since it was piled up with textbooks. It was brilliant. 

What little floor space there was was littered with clothes, which Louis started picking up as soon as they were inside. “It’s usually neater than this, I was just getting dressed, you know how it is.”

Harry usually rotated between four tops and two pairs of jeans at home, but he could see Louis had expanded his wardrobe since he’d left town. Maybe Harry should accept Gemma’s invitations to go shopping in Bradford next time she asked.

He stood just inside the doorway as Louis shoved everything he’d gathered from the floor and his bed inside the wardrobe, and then straightened up when Louis turned around to face him again. His fingers tingled where he was holding them behind his back. 

Louis smiled.

“You look good,” he said. 

“No, you do,” Harry replied. Harry knew what he looked like. His hair had been a nightmare probably since he hit puberty, when it had gone all frizzy and curly. Harry had no idea what to do with it, usually just let it puff out until his mum told him it was time to trim it back. Also, his forehead was spotty, and now standing in front of Louis he was hyper-aware of how worn his own clothes were. 

Louis rolled his eyes, still smiling. 

“It’s not a contest, you know. We can both look good,” he said, and he put his hand on his hip and he flicked his hair to the side and Harry’s palms started sweating again. 

It was stupid, but he’d never noticed those kinds of things before. Growing up, when people at school pointed them out on people, Harry never knew what they meant. There was a kid in his class named Ben, and he’d been a new kid in Year 6. All the boys used to tease him so much he was always either by himself or with the girls, and since Harry was already better friends with the girls than the boys his age, they got close. 

There was something about Ben that had always made Harry feel a kind of kinship. He was obviously not as good a friend as Louis was, never went to each other’s houses or had serious conversations, but sometimes Harry looked at him and felt a little like he wasn’t alone, although he never felt  _ alone.  _ It was hard to explain. 

Ben was soft-mannered and soft-spoken, the complete opposite of most of their classmates, and when he got a girlfriend over the summer, Harry had a bit of a crisis. 

Was still having a bit of a crisis.

“I’m gay,” he blurted out. 

The world didn’t end, and the ceiling didn’t come crashing down on him. He just said it, and that was it.

Oh God. 

It wasn’t the way he’d planned to talk about it, but he literally couldn’t hold it in anymore. Just saying the words out loud sent a rush of relief through him, instantly followed by a cold feeling of dread. Suddenly, he couldn’t look Louis in the eye anymore, and he focused on a stray sock that was still crumpled up next to the foot of the bed. 

“What?” he heard Louis ask, but Harry wasn’t sure he could open his mouth again. He just nodded, eyes flicking quickly towards Louis, who was standing by his bed blinking at him. Harry realised quickly he wasn’t getting this over with, he was just doing this for the first time. This was a big moment, and the thought of having to do it again and again, waiting for people’s reactions, wondering if they were about to say something terrible or not, made him want to take it back and never to have said anything at all. But it was only for a second, because then Louis was stepping closer and hugging him tight enough to make him gasp. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Louis said into Harry’s shoulder. “You don’t have to look so fucking terrified, though. It’s upsetting.” He squeezed Harry harder to show he was joking and Harry finally managed to make himself move to hug him back. They had never hugged like this before — not with their chests and hips and thighs touching, or with their faces tucked into each other’s necks. It made Harry want to start crying, but he swallowed it down. He could feel Louis rubbing his hand along his back and he allowed himself to be swayed slightly from side to side until Louis’ arms were the only thing holding him up. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled belatedly. Louis pulled back and took Harry by the elbows, guiding him towards the bed so they could sit facing each other. Well, Louis faced him, Harry stared down at his lap. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Louis admitted after a second. “No one’s ever come out to me before.”

“No one?” Harry asked, glad to take the focus off him for a bit. 

“Not like this.”

“What about you?” He rubbed at his wrist.

“Me? Coming out? I never did it like this either.”

Harry had to look at him then, just to check if Louis was lying. 

“Not even to your mum?”

Louis smiled, leaning back on his hands so that his shirt pulled against his chest. Harry kept his eyes resolutely up. 

“No, I just started talking to her about fit boys, never thought of making a big moment of it or anything.” Harry couldn’t imagine doing something like that. He needed proper reassurance. He needed to be sure of how everyone felt about it. 

“Was she surprised?” he asked, and Louis’ smile turned sly.

“Were you?” 

No, Harry hadn’t been. He’d seen Louis snogging another boy at a party and all he had been worried about was that Louis was going to tell his mum Harry (at fourteen or so) had been drinking. There was something about Louis that made it seem as if everything he did was what he was supposed to be doing. Like he could do no wrong. Harry had felt that way since before he’d even known how to tie his own shoes, and the feeling was still with him. Of course Louis could kiss boys all over town and not explain himself, but if Harry wanted to maybe stare at a boy’s shoulders for a second too long he needed to prepare a whole speech to excuse himself to everyone he knew. 

He’d had a speech for Louis, too. He’d memorised it just as he had the little map with directions to his flat, but he couldn’t remember a word of it now. His head felt too full.

“I had to explain it to the twins, though,” Louis said. “They asked me why I didn't have a girlfriend last year, told them I like boys, they said boys are gross, so I pretended to get upset because  _ I'm _ a boy so they drew me a picture and that was it.”

God, now that he’d told Louis he would have to tell his mum. And then Gemma. And then he would  _ have _ to tell his dad, it was only fair, but he didn't want to. He didn't want to have to stand in front of him and say the words again, he didn't want to have to hear what his dad would have to say about it.

Harry drew in a breath, and then another. 

“Are you surprised?” he asked, blinking hard. “About me?”

Louis didn’t reply. He looked at Harry, and Harry could tell that he had not been surprised at all. He tried to smile, vision starting to swim, but by Louis’ sudden worried expression he knew he hadn't done a very good job of it. His face felt like it was made of playdoh, stuck in a wonky grimace. 

“There’s this boy,” Harry said, voice all wobbly. 

“You like him,” Louis guessed. 

“No, I just, I thought he was, you know. But he isn’t.” Harry sniffed, rubbing his palms against his thighs. “Or at least, he got a girlfriend. And I got upset.” 

“But you don’t like him.”

“No, I just thought he was like, like me, I guess. Only I didn’t know I was… like this.”

“Gay,” Louis said.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You’ve had girlfriends, too, though.” 

“I know.”

“Alright.”

Harry’d had girlfriends. He’d taken them on dates, snogged them, had sex with them. He wasn’t even sure how he knew he was… not into girls, but he knew, even if he’d never even kissed another boy. He also knew he didn’t like Ben like that at all. It just would have been nice to have a friend to talk about these things with who didn’t live two hours away. 

For some reason, it had always been a comfort to think Ben was gay. It had been devastating to find out he wasn’t, and that no one in their whole town was, and that no one would ever be because small towns were lovely but they could also be stifling and dull and scary. Louis had been an exception. Too bright to let himself be stifled. Brave and wonderful. Their town would never see anyone like him again, Harry was sure. 

“Did you have girlfriends?” Harry asked. 

“Yeah, in Year 3. We got married during lunch one time. Never got a proper divorce, though.” 

Harry laughed, making a couple of tears roll down his cheeks. “What about serious girlfriends?” 

“More serious than marriage?” Harry laughed again. “No, no serious girlfriends for me.”

Harry wanted to ask more, but he wasn’t sure how. He wanted to ask if Louis’d had sex with girls before he realised he prefered boys, or if he’d really always known. It was hard to believe, since the idea of sex with boys hadn’t even entered Harry’s head until he started visiting the websites that needed incognito windows and the house to be empty. Before that, he’d never thought of any specific body parts when he let his mind wander, which should have been a red flag, considering how obsessed the guys at school were with breasts. 

“I’ll be honest,” Louis went on. “I didn’t really start doing anything serious until last year. It’s not like there’re plenty of options back home.”

Harry frowned.

“But, but you had a boyfriend. That Sean kid.”

“Who?”

“Yeah, he was older than you, from out of town. He- I saw him at your house a few years ago, remember? You were all, um, flirty.”

It had taken Harry a couple of years after that day to realise that what he’d thought at the time was stupid banter had really been awkward kids flirting. He still couldn’t wrap his head around a Louis who was fourteen and smoking to look cool for an older boy that Harry still thought was a prat, but he’d been there, it’d happened. 

“Oh,” Louis said, eyes lighting up when he seemed to remember, too. “Yeah, I guess… we never did anything serious though. I was a kid. And he was only at school for that year. We smoked up and snogged sometimes, he was a bit of a twat.”

Harry smiled, feeling vindicated. 

“I knew before I’d snogged any boys, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

Harry swallowed and his throat clicked.

“Yeah, I— Me, too.”

“What boys have  _ you _ been snogging?” Louis asked, smirking and jostling Harry’s leg with his. 

It really was quite difficult to ignore how good Louis looked, especially sitting this close to him. He was still tanned from his summer trip to Hastings, and the glow of his skin made his eyes look even bluer. Harry wasn’t even sure he ever noticed just how blue they were, but they were sparkling right then. Louis looked relaxed and kind and maybe Harry didn’t need to worry so much. 

“I haven’t been snogging anyone,” he said, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. 

“That’s a shame,” Louis said. “We’ll need to find you someone to smooch soon, alright? Might make you feel better.”

Harry felt butterflies in his stomach just thinking about it. He started to smile, imagining all the things he could do now that he’d talked about it for the first time, before his stomach seized with nerves again. How was he going to talk about it with everyone else? He could barely think the word  _ gay _ in relation to himself without thinking about his dad shaking him for crying, cutting his hair off for playng with it, looking embarrassed when he acted certain ways. This was the Terrible Tthing his dad had wanted to avoid when he told him to be friends with Louis all those years ago, and here Harry was, talking about kissing other boys with him. 

A part of Harry felt like it would be a relief to confirm his dad’s suspicions once and for all. Another part was terrified that he’d never be able to forget it when his dad inevitably said something that felt worse than all the shitty things he’d said around him growing up combined. He wasn’t like Louis — he needed to talk about it and he needed verbal confirmation that everything was going to be okay. A hug wouldn’t hurt either, but there was a limit to Harry’s imagination. His dad giving him a hug like Louis had done was a bit  _ too _ unbelievable. 

“Hey,” Louis said, and Harry looked up from his lap. His vision had gone blurry again, and he blinked until it cleared. “Come here.”

He let Louis pull him close. They laid back against his pillows, cramped in the small bed, and Louis arranged them until Harry was resting his head on his shoulder, hands awkwardly trapped between their bodies.

The next time Louis spoke was a few minutes later. 

“I feel like you cry in bed with me too often,” he said and Harry was startled into a watery laugh. 

“What? When did I do that before?”

“Don't know, just feels like you did at one point.”

He felt Louis’ fingers in his hair and pressed his face harder against his shoulder. He was right — this had probably happened before. Harry had always felt safe crying in front of Louis, so it wasn’t a reach to think they’d been in this same exact position sometime in the past. It felt nice, and Harry’s heart slowed as his tears dried on Louis’ shirt. 

(He wondered if Louis had really been on his way out to a date before Harry showed up, but he was still not going to ask.)

There was a time from when Harry had been around thirteen and up until he was fifteen when he and Louis hadn't talked to each other. Harry had never been sure what happened, he only remembered that all of a sudden Louis had been harder and harder to track down until, when they did see each other, Harry felt too awkward to approach him. Then suddenly Louis had been back, on his own volition, tentatively at first before they sort of crashed back into their old selves. In Harry’s memory, he and Louis had been inseparable as kids. He hardly had any childhood memories Louis wasn’t somehow a part of, and he liked it that way. He’d only started getting along with Gemma after she went off to uni, and he’d only found a good group of friends his age after he started secondary. Louis had been a constant source of goodness in his life even when they had that weird break in the middle, and he was glad Harry’d come talk to him first. 

“I wanna get a tattoo,” he mumbled into Louis’ shoulder. 

“Yeah?” Louis asked above him, his fingers still combing through his hair. 

“Yeah, to, like, commemorate.” Harry had been thinking about getting a tattoo pretty much since the moment he’d decided he was going to tell Louis. The idea had always been lurking in his head - he thought they looked cool but his mum would never have let him, and besides, he wanted it to be meaningful. He was eighteen now, and had a good enough reason to get one. “Is that stupid?”

“Nah, I did it myself,” Louis said. Harry lifted his head to look at him properly and felt Louis’ hand fall from his head to his shoulder. 

“You've got a tattoo?” he asked. 

“Mmhm, here.” Louis shifted and bent his knee to bring his foot closer. With the hand that wasn’t around Harry, he pulled his jean leg up and his sock down. There was a little triangle sitting there on his ankle, just the outline, and Harry stared until Louis moved his leg away. 

“It's nice,” Harry finally said, voice rough. He cleared his throat. “Suits you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you’ve got nice ankles.”

Louis snorted and a flush crept up Harry’s neck. 

“Do I?”

“Yeah.” He thought everything about Louis was nice, so.

“Well, where’re you planning to get yours then?” Louis asked, settling back on the bed. His fingers lifted to Harry’s hair again and Harry could have started purring. He snuggled closer. 

“Dunno,” he said. “Maybe my ribs, or like, over my heart. Or like a heart on my arm, you know, like a heart on my sleeve, like… being honest.”

“Sounds good.”

“Do you think it’d be too obvious?”

“What do you mean?”

Harry took a breath. He knew what he was about to say, he could hear the words in his head, and he knew what he really felt about them, deep down. He still wanted to hear what Louis thought. 

_ “Girls _ get heart tattoos,” he said, “don’t they?”

Louis was quiet for a few seconds. Harry hated his own knee jerk reaction to certain things. He hated that he couldn’t wear certain colours without panicking a little, or that he avoided listening to certain songs just in case someone caught him at it. He hated that he’d stopped gardening with his mum because someone made an offhand comment about it once that hit too close to home, and he hated that the voice he heard in his head every time this particular fear started nagging at him was always the same. 

“I mean,” Louis finally spoke up, “girls get skull tattoos, too. They get all sorts. The girl who gave me mine had a whole truck tattooed on her chest.”

Harry wasn’t sure if Louis was joking, but he didn’t feel like laughing. Instead, he started to feel bad again, like something was climbing up his throat. He gritted his teeth, keeping it down.

“He’s gonna hate me,” he said quietly. 

“Who is?” Harry didn’t reply — Louis knew who he meant. His eyes started prickling again, and soon he was crying, trying his best to be quiet. He heard Louis sigh above him, and felt his fingers travel to the back of his neck and squeeze. “He’s not going to hate you, Harry. And if he does, he’s even more of an arsehole than I thought. Sorry.”

Harry shook his head. His dad  _ was _ an arsehole, and it only made Harry cry harder. His dad was an arsehole to him and Gemma and their mum, but he wasn’t to Myra, or Eric or Josh. It was like Harry had been practice for him, and then he’d gone off to start a real family he would want keep. Harry loved Robin. He loved how happy he made his mum and how much he seemed to love all of them all the time, but he couldn’t help but to feel bitter. Even if he knew Robin would be supportive, knowing there was a chance his dad would have one more reason not to like him made his heart hurt. 

“He’s not going to hate you, Harry,” Louis said again. He spoke right against Harry’s forehead. “He’s not, I promise. I’m sorry I called him an arsehole.”

Harry let out a laugh, face hot from crying. 

“He is, you’re right. I just wish he wasn’t.”

Louis said nothing. He stayed where he was until Harry was all cried out, and then took his hand, held his arm up in the air and started suggesting different spots for his future tattoo. Eventually, a sharpie appeared out of nowhere, and Harry ended up giggling into Louis’s pillows while his arm started collecting doodle after doodle. His eyes were sore and his throat felt raw, but Harry’s entire body felt light for the first time in months.

Louis made him feel weightless. 

Later, Harry was trying to wrestle the marker out of Louis’ hands to return the favour when there was a knock on the door. Liam’s voice drifted in. 

“I’m going to order some food. Is Harry staying?”

Louis looked down at Harry, who bit his lip, unsure if Liam was just reminding them he’d overstayed his welcome. But Louis asked, “You like Indian?” and when Harry nodded, he jumped off the bed and went to give their order to Liam. 

Harry sat up. His head felt cottony, and he could have slept for ten hours if he’d tried. When Louis came back towards him, it took Harry a moment to look up.

“Haz,” Louis said softly, “wanna tell Liam?”

“What?”

“You can come out to him, if you want. He won’t care, I promise, and you can practise saying it out loud.”

Harry stared up at Louis in wonder. How he was so in tune with what Harry felt, he didn’t know, but as scary as having to say it again was, he knew he could do it if Louis stood by his side.

So Harry did. They walked back to the tiny little living room, where instead of playing video games Liam was watching a Marvel film, and lingered by the couch until Louis took the initiative and said, “Excuse you, Liam, Harry has something to say.”

Liam looked at him and Harry just. Said it. 

“I’m gay.” He made sure to sound as firm as he could. 

“Okay,” Liam said, dragging the word out and looking between Louis and Harry as if he wasn’t sure if they were playing a prank on him. “Um, I’m not.”

“No one cares what you do with your prick, Liam, wow,” Louis butted in and Harry laughed — startled enough he was sure he was heard all the way to the ground floor — while Liam’s face went pink.

The whole time Louis kept his hand around Harry’s waist, like an anchor keeping him safely grounded in place. 

.

The next morning, Harry’s dad drove over to pick him up. They were going straight on the road, so Harry knew the car would be full and it made his stomach churn, anxious. Louis walked him to the door downstairs, both wearing the clothes they’d slept on (pressed together in Louis’ bed, looking out the window above them, kicking the covers off in the middle of the night when it got too hot because, maybe, Louis had thought Harry would  _ look _ if he took his jeans off, even thought Harry would have done his very best not to). They paused in the lobby, Louis’ hand on the brass knob of the door without pulling. He didn’t end up going out the night before, didn’t even mention it. They just talked until they couldn’t keep their eyes open anymore.

Louis stood between Harry and the door, and gave Harry a careful look. 

“Stop me if you want to,” he said, curled his free hand around Harry’s forearm, and leaned in. Louis moved slowly, but Harry still didn’t have time to react, he could barely draw in a startled breath before it happened, but he never would have stopped it anyway.

Louis kissed him. He pushed his mouth against Harry’s, lips soft and skin still sleep-warm. 

He moved away with a smile before it fully sinked in. 

“There,” he said, mouth twisting like he was trying not to let his smile get too big. “So you don’t go out there  _ completely _ inexperienced with other boys.”

Harry’s entire body was thrumming as he walked down the stone steps and towards his dad’s waiting car. He looked back only once, saw Louis grinning and waving at him from the door, and tripped over his own feet. 

If his dad said something about his clumsiness, Harry didn’t hear it. All he could hear was his own heart beating in his ears, his palm pressed to the spot on his arm Louis had touched last.


	6. Exploring

During his uni years, Louis moved around quite a bit. 

His first year, he lived in a dormitory, with two roommates and a communal shower room he had to share with two stories worth of other male students. The actual room he slept in was cramped and the only window was right by the end of his bed, letting in a constant draft that made him have the sniffles for the entire year. People weren’t allowed inside the dorms if they were not students, which had worked perfectly for him — he was away from his hometown for the first time in his life, spending all his time with people who knew nothing about him other than what Louis chose to tell them. 

It was all very novel. 

He made friends from all over Europe (okay, most of them were from the UK, but there was an Italian bloke that sometimes tagged along when they all went out for drinks), people who came from towns Louis had never heard of and who were studying subjects too sophisticated for him to even begin to fathom wanting to even dip his toes in. He made a group of friends as diverse as the old Disney shows he used to watch as a kid, got a part-time job in the dorm’s mail room, and learned that he’d been deluded thinking Year 13 had been hard. His first few months of university Louis didn’t know up from down. 

Life in a dorm had been hectic and nothing like what the student guides had led him to believe when he’d first visited the school during the summer. He’d already come from a house with too many people scheduling the use of a single bathroom. He’d already had to clean up sick on a semi-regular basis and battle his way into breakfast before the best food disappeared every morning. Dorm life was eerily familiar and quite definitely not for him. 

For his second year, Louis moved into a shared flat in a slightly dodgy area close to the building most of his classes took place in. He had spent the summer down in Hastings trying his hand at having a more-or-less proper boyfriend for the first time. On his way back up north in late August, after a weird more-or-less proper breakup, Louis had found a listing for a flat and had called in to go see it that very same day. The flat was a second floor walkup, extremely tiny and with an awkward sort of floor plan. Rent was so cheap Louis had been able to actually  _ taste _ all the non-noodle food he’d be able to afford as he walked around the uneven rooms, and he’d turned in an application on the spot. 

The flat came with two other renters who’d applied on the same day as him: Liam, who was a bit of a tit for the first couple of weeks before he learned to relax, and Matt, who was more ghost than flatmate but always left his share of the rent on the tiny kitchen counter on the first of each month, so Louis couldn’t complain. For the first time in his life, he had a place he could bring dates over to if he wanted without worrying about getting caught. It was a tad awkward, what with the loo being in Liam’s and Matt’s room, but they made it work. They split the cost of groceries and utilities between the three of them, had occasional movie nights, and ate dinner together on the living room floor when they happened to be in at the same time on school nights. It was a little more like Louis had imagined uni life would be, only with a lot more stressing over exams and assignments than he’d hoped. 

The following year was the most hectic by far. The program he’d chosen involved doing several short teaching placements during his fifth and sixth semesters and then one or two longer ones during his last year, so Louis spent his third year of university mostly commuting. The schools he was assigned were mostly rural schools that reminded him of his own growing up, except smaller and quieter. Since he still had to attend his usual courses in the city, he stayed in the same flat even after Matt and Liam moved out, and he got a set of new flatmates that he never really got to know very well. He usually taught during the mornings, attended class in the afternoon, and then spent most of the evening planning lessons and grading assignments from kids aged five to eleven. 

The trickiest part was deciphering their writing. 

Then in May that year, when Louis could already start to see the light at the end of the tunnel but was still being tortured by both finals and lazy co-teachers, Liam texted him about living together again starting September. Louis, who’d felt embarrassingly lonely for the last year, said yes at once. He spent the summer back at home, sleeping and listening to Lottie singing about never being royal at the top of her lungs for a month straight, and then packed his bags again and joined Liam back in the city. 

His last year of uni flew by. He moved in with Liam and a bunch of other people to a shared house that belonged to the uncle of some Irish kid a year behind them, did his last (paid!) teaching placement in a school that was, blessfully, at a walking distance from the house, and passed all his classes without a glitch. It was a bit anticlimactic how calm his last month of university was, but the awe of actually having finished didn’t leave him for weeks afterwards. 

He graduated. 

Louis Tomlinson, former bagger of groceries and near secondary school dropout had graduated university not only with a degree, but with a job offer and more than one letter of recommendation from his professors. It just wouldn’t sink in. 

During his graduation ceremony, Louis kept looking around him at all the other people dressed in the gown and cap and couldn't believe he was one of them. For the longest time, Louis had thought he’d only ever see a graduation ceremony on telly, or maybe when one of his sisters finished uni, but no. There  _ he _ was, listening to endless, droning speeches, walking on stage to shake hands and to get his degree, and then throwing his cap in the air to the sound of cheers and applause from all around him. 

His mum cried, and his sisters clung to him and asked to try on his cap (meaning they took turns flinging it in the air until it got stuck in a tree). No one else was there to see him because he’d reached the guest limit, but his phone buzzed with messages all through the day. Louis couldn’t stop smiling. 

Out of all of his house mates, only him and a girl called Pauline were graduating that year, so they decided to throw caution to the wind and have a little party to celebrate. Usually, everyone was good about checking in to see if it was okay to bring people over for a big thing. They had a schedule printed and stuck to a board in the kitchen (courtesy of Liam, Louis was sure) where everyone could call dibs on the common areas on certain days, like if they wanted to have a cookout in the back garden, or if they wanted to have friends over to watch a film in the cellar. If a day was crossed out in red, though, no one was allowed to plan anything too loud — it usually meant someone was cramming for something important. Luckily, they were all undergrads and usually needed to block out the same weeks. No one ever felt like partying before, during, or right after finals, so loud noises when he was trying to study had never been an issue for Louis while he’d lived there. 

Neither he nor Pauline paid any mind to the board the morning after graduation, though. They didn’t need to. The year was over and there was a general air of relief and cheerfulness around the house. All the bedroom doors were open, there was the sound of talking and laughter echoing down the hallways, and winter seemed to have finally decided to fuck off and allow a bit of spring to seep through. They planned for the party on the first Saturday after school was officially closed for the summer, right before most of their friends travelled home or wherever they were spending the following months.

The first person Louis texted was Harry. 

Harry was the last person to arrive.

Louis’d been keeping an eye on the door since the moment the house started to fill out, drifting from group to group and downing every drink that happened to appear in his hand. Every once in a while someone would slap a friendly hand on his shoulder and drag him into a conversation, but Louis was too buzzed and too anxious to focus for long. They were all pretty much saying the same things anyway: there were congratulations, questions about what he would do next, and some envious comments about him being done while some people still had one or two years left.

A classic post graduation sort of party, in Louis’ opinion, except he wasn’t nearly as plastered as he would have been any other time. Not yet, at least. He wanted to still be more or less coherent when Harry arrived, but he  _ was _ still celebrating — there was a warm, fizzy feeling in his stomach from all the toasts he’d already been dragged into.

He was hovering between the kitchen and the back garden, laughing at a story someone was telling about one of his least favourite professors, when Harry finally deigned to show up. Louis saw him come down the corridor towards the back of the house and be stopped by someone grabbing his arm. He saw him stumble a step backwards and then laugh and clap someone’s shoulder in greeting, Louis couldn’t see whose. 

Harry had become a bit of a drifter since he’d finished college. He’d visited a few universities, but he said that he couldn’t make up his mind about a career to pursue, so he would take a year off to figure it out. Two years later, he’d travelled around the UK with nothing but what he could carry on his back, sang around pubs in Scotland to make money and slept in people’s sheds in exchange for manual labour. He’d sent Louis enough photos of himself shovelling cow shit to cover an entire wall in his bedroom (not that Louis ever would, it was just an excessive amount of photos). 

He’d been to other places as well. He’d gone to London for a while, and sent Louis photos of him dressed in tight clothes and standing outside clubs, or in the middle of different bridges, or in line at the Sherlock Holmes Museum next to the fake old-timey policeman who guarded the door, both scowling at the camera with their hands behind their backs. He’d lived in a fishing town in Wales (he sent Louis photos of fish hooks stuck to his fingers), and hitchhiked around Ireland (mostly, he sent photos of weird-looking rocks). 

Louis felt like he’d moved around loads in the last couple of years, but it had been nothing compared to Harry. 

But even with all the travelling, and meeting new people and finding new things to learn every few months, Harry still visited home often enough. Every once in a while, he would go back to their town to see his mum and stepdad, and then he would drive down to visit Louis and Gemma in Manchester. Over time, all of Louis’ friends had heard enough of Louis’s stories of Harry that they all knew about him, and Harry had popped his head into Louis’ various living places enough times that his closest friends had met him at least once. 

It wasn’t surprising that, now, Harry couldn’t take two steps in Louis’ direction without being stopped by someone saying hi. Louis watched him as he accepted a drink from a guy Louis didn’t know and had a little chat by the doorway, always too polite to say no. Louis wondered if he’d come by himself.

During the last few months, Harry had been living back in his family home. He said he was trying to find a job in the city, but he’d also gotten a boyfriend who lived in a town halfway to the city, so Louis wasn’t sure what his true motives were. 

Either way, it had made it easier to see each other lately. As much as getting Harry’s silly photos usually made Louis’ day, getting to see his face in person was a big improvement from only getting to see him through a screen. 

He could see Harry now, starting to look around over people’s heads. Louis smiled to himself and sipped at his drink — his fourth? Fifth? He’d lost count. When their eyes met, he saw Harry do a little double take before grinning his goofiest grin, all his teeth showing, and sending Louis a little wave. Louis nodded, keeping his face as neutral as possible, and watched as Harry started to make his excuses. He watched as he tried to break free from the conversation, turning his body away only for the guy talking to him to grab his arm again and stop him. He saw Harry gesturing towards Louis with what looked like an apologetic shrug and then getting roped back into whatever the other guy was saying. 

It took him five more minutes to escape, in which time Louis went from glad that Harry was still the same too-nice-for-his-own-good boy he’d always been, to annoyed he was being made to wait on his special day. 

Louis was a Christmas baby. He had four younger sisters. He cherished any occasion that was all about him for a change, even if he was sharing with Pauline. Harry wasn’t there to see Pauline. 

“Lou,” Harry said when he finally managed to reach Louis. He was still grinning, only it had gone soft instead of silly. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Louis said, and then dropped the offended act and drew Harry in for a hug, their drinks sloshing in their cup and spilling to the floor. Harry was too endearing to him on a regular day, Louis couldn’t be expected to keep his cool when he was already on his way to tipsy. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too,” Harry mumbled into Louis’ neck. “I wanted to see you in your gown and everything.”

“Not many people had that privilege,” Louis told him, giving him one last squeeze before he let him go. 

“Your mum showed me the photos, though,” Harry smiled a little wider. 

“As if they do me justice,” Louis said with a roll of his yes, and Harry laughed. Whoever Louis had been talking to before had disappeared into the crowd at some point. It was only him and Harry now, huddled into a corner in the kitchen while people around them walked in and out of the back garden to get drinks. There was music coming from somewhere in the front of the house, nothing too loud yet, and creaking coming from the floor above, meaning someone was wandering around up there. 

This wasn’t Louis’ first house party. He’d locked his bedroom door as soon as the first people had started to arrive. 

“So, when did you get here, then?” Louis asked, taking a swig from his cup and finding it almost empty. “I’ve been waiting for you to congratulate me.”

“Congratulations,” Harry said obediently. The look on his face, though, was one Louis was quite familiar with. It was the same look Harry used to give him when Louis finished a difficult level on a video game, or when he told Harry about all the shit he and his friends used to get up to when he still lived in town and had to make his own fun or die of boredom. It was a look of pure wonder, and it used to make Louis uncomfortable when he was younger. Now, he relished in it. Louis was impressed with himself as well, he’d take all the wonder and admiration he could get, such was his right. If it was coming from Harry, then even better. There had always been something extremely earnest about him, it was good to see that his adventures abroad hadn’t changed that. 

“Thank you,” Louis said primly, and nudged Harry with his elbow to make sure he knew he meant it. Harry just looked generally delighted — there was a chance the drink in his hand wasn’t his first of the night. “What took you so long, though?”

“I had to pack, didn’t I?” Harry said, and Louis noticed the duffel slung around his shoulder for the first time. “Or did you change your mind?”

Louis was the only one of his housemates who wasn’t in a rush to start their vacation. He knew he would be starting on his new job in mid-August and he would spend most of the summer looking for a new flat and thinking about starting to move out of his mum’s house properly, old furniture and useless knickknacks included. 

By Monday, everyone would be gone for most of the summer, and Louis would be left alone. 

Niall, whose uncle owned the house, was going to Ireland for a week right after the party to visit his family. Since Louis had nothing he needed to do right away, he had been asked to house sit until he returned, and Louis, not someone who enjoyed being by himself for long periods of time, had invited Harry to stay with him, since he was already making the trip out to come to the party anyway.

Harry had said yes before Louis even had time to ask what his boyfriend would think about him shaking up with another boy for seven days.

“Of course I didn’t change my mind,” Louis said. “I was promised restaurant-worthy meals and decent company.” 

“Only decent?” Harry pretended to pout and Louis had to resist the urge to pinch his lip until he stopped. The alcohol was already going to his head, he could tell. 

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he said. “Take your bag to my room, you’re not going to be lugging it around all night, are you?”

He dug the key out of his jeans and placed it on Harry’s open palm. Then he closed Harry’s fingers around it and gave his hand a little pat. 

“Don’t snoop.”

“Snooping? Doesn’t sound like me,” Harry grinned, and then bounded off before Louis could remind him what a busybody he was, which he’d apparently forgotten. 

Louis probably wouldn’t even have graduated if Harry hadn’t been a busybody at a particularly difficult time, and Louis needed to remember to say something at some point.

He was still waiting for Harry to return from upstairs when Liam found him. He handed him another drink and leaned against the wall next to Louis. He was a good lad, Liam, even if they hadn’t always gotten along. It had taken them some time to understand each other.

“This is warm,” Louis said after taking a sip, and then grinned into his cup when Liam sighed. 

“You can get yourself another one, then,” he mumbled. Even if he knew Louis was kidding, he always took every little joke to heart. They used to get into big arguments at the beginning, before Louis learned to tone the jokes down and Liam learned that, if Louis was being a prick, he was most likely trying to get a rise out of him and he shouldn’t give him the satisfaction. It was always more fun when Liam didn’t get angry, anyway. Louis preferred his arguments to be lighthearted — he knew himself well enough to know he would always say something he didn't mean if he got incensed enough. 

“You’re gonna miss me,” he told Liam.

“Everyone will,” Liam said, not playing along at all. He melted Louis’ heart, sometimes, but this wasn’t a day to get emotional. It was a day to celebrate and get plastered and have fun. He didn’t want to get weepy in a corner with Liam. 

Luckily, Harry entered the kitchen before Louis could think too hard about everything he was going to miss as well.

“Hey, Harry,” Liam greeted him, giving him the stilted half-hug he seemed to save specially for him. “Still gay?”

“Yeah, I think so,” said Harry. “You?”

“Not yet, mate.”

It was a bit Liam and Harry did, which Louis wasn’t crazy about. It was just weird that they would have inside jokes when Louis and Liam didn’t, and they’d been living together for years. He never said anything, though, because he liked to see Harry being able to joke about that day years ago, when he’d been so nervous his voice had trembled just as badly as his hands. 

“Maybe one day,” Harry replied, and then turned to Louis with a cheeky smile. He handed him the key back. “Left everything as I found it.”

“You took your time, too.”

Harry’s smile dimmed and Louis was suddenly a bit more alert.

“Hey, Lou. Um, do you know that guy over there?” Harry tipped his head to the side, eyes pointing back before they met Louis’ again. 

Louis checked. There were quite a few people behind Harry, but he assumed he meant the guy staring at the back of his head and pretending to be talking to someone else. It was the same guy who’d stopped Harry before while Louis was waiting for him.

“I think he’s Pauline’s friend or something,” said Liam. “I haven’t seen him around much. Why? You like him?”

“No, he, he’s been kind of following me around since I got here.”

“Did he do anything weird?” asked Louis. 

“He keeps bringing me drinks and, you know, lingering and stuff.”

Harry had a boyfriend. Even though he’d been out for a couple of years now, he’d spent a lot of that time wandering around having adventures and meeting all sorts of people, just like Louis felt  _ he’d _ done at uni. The big difference was that, living out of a backpack and working in hostels for food and board hadn’t given him the same sort of experiences living in the city and being social in a more conventional setting had given Louis. They both came from the same place — a little town with not a lot of people in it, a school filled with kids from other little towns. Louis felt they were both awkward in their own ways because of it, but maybe it was taking Harry a bit longer to get over his awkwardness. 

It was taking Louis a long time to get rid of the feeling that he had to protect him from the things that made him uncomfortable, too. 

“Alright,” he said. “You want him to stop? Wanna be taken for the night?”

_ “What?” _ Harry squawked, laughing and blushing. 

“Wanna be my pretend boyfriend for the night? That way we can have fun and not worry about anyone trying to pull you.”

Harry stared at him. Next to them, Liam busied himself with his drink and said nothing. Good. They’d had enough arguments about Louis babying Harry and Liam’s insane theories as to why over the years. It didn’t help Louis’ case that Harry had spent the night in Louis’ room the very same night Liam met him, but still, it shouldn’t have been that hard to believe that Harry had always been someone Louis felt like he had to take care of. Louis wanted Harry to have fun — it was for the  _ party’s _ sake. 

Just because sometime between the cow shit photos and the clubbing in thigh clothes in London photos Louis had realised Harry was actually quite fit didn’t mean he had ulterior motives for wanting to help him.

“What about someone trying to pull  _ you?”  _ Harry eventually asked. Louis scoffed. 

“No one’s going to if you’re my boyfriend, will they?”

“But don’t you want them to?” Harry pushed.

“Nah, I want to celebrate with my best mates. No one ever thought I’d graduate and look at us now.”

“I knew you would,” Harry said, at the same time Liam chimed in with, “Who didn’t think you’d graduate?”

Louis ignored them both. He lifted his arm up and urged Harry to settle underneath it. Then he sent the guy staring at them a look as he finished the last of his drink.

“There,” he said, and handed Liam his empty cup.

When he checked again, the guy had looked away. Next to him, Harry felt a little tense, but that was probably because of the same reason he still sometimes subconsciously seemed to lower his voice whenever they talked about anything related to his sexuality, be it other boys, certain films, certain music, and so on. Louis made up for it by trying to be as blunt as possible when he knew they were somewhere safe where Harry didn’t need to worry, but he knew Harry still worried anyway. 

The bloody guy he’d chosen as a boyfriend didn’t help, of course, but Louis didn’t want to sour his mood thinking about it. 

Most of Louis’ uni friends were queer. It had taken him a while to be okay calling them (and himself) that, but the word definitely had a different connotation here than it did back home. 

Once he’d gotten out of his town, he’d slowly fallen in with people who, although came from very different backgrounds, were all similar at their core. Similar to Louis in ways his friends from back home had never been, as much as Louis still loved them. There was a special sort of affection he felt for the lads he’d grown up with. There was something special about sharing most of his childhood memories with them, having the same roots, having slept in each other’s beds as children, gone skinny dipping as teenagers and sneaked their first drinks together. When Louis met with his old friends now, he wasn’t really him anymore, he was the Louis he’d always been with them, and he suspected they went through the same weird regression as soon as they were all in the same room as well. 

It was always a good laugh, but afterwards, Louis always felt a bit strange.

Harry, although he was also someone from Louis’ past, was different. Louis always felt genuine when he was with him. They hadn't only grown up together, they’d actually  _ grown up _ together, changed together and continued to be themselves even when they only saw each other every once in a while. Louis didn’t feel like he was back in primary whenever he met Harry, and hopefully Harry didn’t either, even if apparently Louis babied him, thank you,  _ Liam.  _

However, as genuine as Louis wanted Harry to feel with him, he knew Harry still wasn’t honest with everyone in his life. Not only did his dad continue to be shitty enough Harry talked to him as little as possible, but he’d gone and found himself a boyfriend who wasn’t even out, which, whatever, it was fine. Except that — in Louis’ opinion — Harry deserved to be able to be fully himself with the person he chose to be with. Right? 

Maybe Louis should stop drinking if he was going to think about complicated topics, though. Also, he didn’t want to start saying any of it out loud, so he tried to steer his brain away from that path. Instead, he focused on trying to get Harry to relax. 

It involved quite a bit of alcohol. 

House parties as a grownup were very different from what Louis used to imagine when he was younger. Parties where he was from had already been nothing compared to what they showed on telly. As a teenager, most of the parties he’d gone to had been organised in abandoned fields or in people’s old, unused barns. He’d expected they would look more like what he’d been led to believe after he moved to the city, but no. They were quieter, and there were a lot more board games than Louis would have ever imagined, but at least it meant that Harry felt right at home. 

They found Niall in the sitting room playing a drunken version of Old Maid with a group of people Louis wasn’t sure he knew but who all congratulated him. He and Harry dove in, sitting on the floor so close together they might as well have sat in each other’s laps, and before Louis knew what was happening, Harry had become the Old Maid twice and was well on his way to loud, sloppy drunk. Louis wasn’t far behind. 

They regaled the group with a fake, convoluted story of how they had gotten together and called each other the most ridiculous pet names they could think of until Harry was donkey-laughing and Louis was so drunk he’d come all the way around to coherent but so incredibly unsteady on his feet he had to cling to whatever was close by to stay upright. 

Fortunately, Harry was very clingable. He felt solid under Louis’ hands even as they both swayed and, even when Louis wasn’t sure how he’d gotten to another room all of a sudden, Harry was always there, nodding along to whatever tale Louis spun. He lost track of the people they’d already talked to, so he couldn’t be sure he was telling different stories to the same audience, but the gist was always the same: Harry was taken, so go look somewhere else. 

If Harry had come to the party with his  _ real _ boyfriend, would Louis have still pretended to be with him, since the bloke wasn’t out? Would he have been alright with Harry calling Louis  _ sweetcheeks _ and pouring drinks into Louis’ mouth? Would he have let Louis get away with squeezing Harry’s bum a few times too many just because people were staring and they were playing a part? 

Would he have gotten angry at Harry for letting Louis corner him outside the downstairs loo to stick his tongue down his throat?

Probably. Louis got angry thinking about random guys bringing Harry drinks and he wasn’t even really Harry’s boyfriend, so it was safe to say that what him and Louis were doing was not very good. It  _ felt _ good, but lots of things that felt good were bad ideas, in Louis’ experience. Drinking as much as they had was one of them, and Louis knew for a fact it would not feel good in the morning. Right then, though, the part of his brain that made him stop doing things wasn’t working. 

This wasn’t Harry’s and Louis’ first kiss. They’d kissed once before, the day after Harry came out to him. Louis could still remember making the decision to lean in half a second before he actually did it, remembered the cold sweat soaking his palms, and the way Harry’s full lips had felt under his, his little startled intake of breath. It had been a peck, something sweet he knew (was almost sure) would make Harry happy. 

The drunken kiss outside the loo was not short or sweet, and Louis couldn’t remember deciding to start it. Couldn't remember  _ if _ he had started it, although he had to have been the one who did it, because Harry had a boyfriend. Who wasn’t him. And who would probably get angry if he knew what Harry was doing. 

Harry didn’t seem worried about this. He kissed Louis with as much enthusiasm as Louis was kissing him, dragged their tongues together all wet and dirty, and pulled Louis in by the shoulders so that he was pressed between the wall and Louis’ body, touching everywhere. This was the sort of kissing that was never only kissing, and Louis seemed to be on autopilot, his hands scrabbling to slide up Harry’s top, his hips rocking rhythmically as he listened to Harry’s breathing go ragged. 

Behind them, the party was still going. There was still soft music coming from somewhere in the house, and Louis heard someone shouting _Uno!_ from another room, but it was as if him and Harry had teleported somewhere else entirely. He couldn’t remember how they’d ended up where they were, so maybe they had. Anything could happen, apparently. Louis had graduated _and_ he was kissing _Harry_ — teleporting didn’t sound so crazy from where he was standing. Or rather, leaning. Leaning against Harry, licking into Harry’s mouth, touching Harry’s fevered skin. He could feel that he was getting hard and he wasn’t even embarrassed. Maybe Harry was getting hard, too. He sounded good, like he was enjoying himself, and that was nice. This was Harry’s party, too. He was the one who’d helped Louis get his shit together, even if all he’d done was be a busybody. 

He wondered what kind of sex Harry’d had, what with a closeted boyfriend who lived in another town and everything, and then marvelled at how fucking weird it was that he was thinking about Harry having sex. 

“Are we going to have sex?” Louis asked. He said it right against Harry’s lips, so he was sure it came out more than a little muddled. Or maybe he was babbling because he was so drunk the room was spinning even with his eyes closed, but Harry seemed to understand him, because he surged in to kiss him harder, so that was presumably a yes. Except. “You’ve got a boyfriend.”

This time Louis was sure his words were clearer. He felt Harry go still against him, and he didn’t like that. He wanted Harry to have fun. He slowly went to move away, too dizzy to move too fast, but Harry stopped him. 

“No, um,” he said. His voice sounded deeper than usual, and Harry had quite a deep voice, so that was saying something. Louis could still remember when Harry’s voice was so high Louis used to think he’d shatter the windows every time he cried really hard, but it felt like thinking about someone else entirely. He surely wasn’t kissing that Harry, was he? “We’re not like that, we— We’re fighting.”

Louis did his best to open his eyes. The light was too bright, so he squinted. He couldn’t see a thing. “We are?”

Harry giggled, breath puffing against Louis’ face. 

“Not  _ us,” _ he said.

“Oh,” Louis smiled, relieved because he and Harry never fought these days, and kissed him again. It still felt nice, and Harry still kissed back like he wanted it to go on forever. Maybe it would. That’d be nice as well. 

But. Wait.

“Harry,” Louis tried again. “You’ve got a boyfriend.”

“No,” Harry whined. “We’re— We fought. Before. S’not like that anyway.”

Louis wasn’t sure what Harry was trying to say, but he was starting not to care either way. He could feel Harry getting hard against his thigh now, and that was pulling his brain back in another direction fast. Harry tasted sweet, and he smelled sweet, and it was all Louis wanted to think about. 

When Harry suddenly toppled backwards, Louis felt his stomach churn. It was a clear sign that he’d drunk way too much (if snogging his childhood friend hadn’t been enough of one) but they righted themselves quickly enough. It turned out the wall he’d been pressing Harry against was actually the loo door, and before Louis could tell what was happening he was pressing Harry against the sink instead, the noises from outside completely muted. Suddenly, he could hear the noises  _ they _ were making much more clearly. The way they breathed hard through their noses, and the soft little whimpers one of them was making, the rustle of clothing as their hands roamed. 

Harry and Louis had gotten drunk together before, but they’d never ended up like this. The first time was around the time Harry had started to babysit Louis’ sisters. They’d bumped into each other at a party (in a field on the edge of town, music coming from people’s trucks parked in a huge circle with their lights on). They’d already been drinking with different groups, and when they’d knocked elbows on the way into the tall grass to piss, Louis had pointed at the bottle in Harry’s hand.

“You’re not allowed to do that,” he’d said. Harry had been fifteen. 

“Neither are you,” Harry’d said, puffy hair in his eyes and mouth too big for his face. 

They’d laughed about it and eventually gone back to their friends. Louis had caught Harry looking at him all night afterwards, growing less and less subtle the more he drank. Every time Louis acknowledged him, Harry got the biggest smile on his face, like Louis knew he would. Like he’d always done. And when everyone was good and drunk, they all huddled under blankets on the back of the trucks and sang  _ Glory Glory Man United _ up at the sky, because it was a song everyone knew by heart. They’d been in different trucks, but Louis had still been able to hear Harry shouting the words at the top of his lungs. 

He smiled thinking about it, and his teeth clicked against Harry’s. 

“You feel nice,” he said, because it was true. Louis was resting his whole weight on Harry, was kneading at the chub on his hips, was rubbing himself against his leg. There wasn’t a single point of contact that didn’t feel electrified, like he was about to buzz out of his skin. He was pretty sure it wasn’t just the alcohol. 

When Harry hummed into his mouth, Louis felt it down to his toes, and when his teeth scraped Louis’ lips, it sent a zing down to his groin that made Louis groan. The noise seemed to spur Harry on, and he kissed deeper, arms over Louis’ shoulders pulling them even closer. 

Louis could have kissed him forever — his head full of cotton and his body pleasantly warm — but Harry had other ideas. Before Louis was ready to stop, he was being gently pushed back, Harry’s mouth was sliding away, and then Louis was tripping over his own feet as he was turned around so that the small of his back was leaning against the edge of the sink.

“What—” he started to ask, but when he blinked his eyes open, Harry wasn’t in front of him. It took him a moment to connect the tugging he was feeling on his fly to Harry’s location, and by the time he dropped his head to look at the floor, Harry already had his cock out. 

It gave him a bit of vertigo looking down, and he had to hold on to Harry’s head, which was apparently all the reassurance Harry needed to go on. Louis didn’t have time to appreciate the blurry view of Harry on his knees before he had to squeeze his eyes shut to the sudden heat around him, to the wet suction of Harry’s mouth. Louis’d already been hard, but he could apparently still get even harder, because he felt all the blood in his body rush to his crotch in a single woosh. His balls went tight and so did his fingers in Harry’s curls, his other hand holding onto the sink behind himself. 

Harry’s head moved under his touch, bobbing in a sloppy rhythm, spit trickling down Louis’ balls. His knees wanted to give, he was breathing so hard he thought he might pass out, there was pressure building fast, his jaw ached as he grit his teeth and he managed to open his eyes a sliver, get a peek of Harry with Louis’ cock in his mouth, face flushed in the dark and Louis’ own hand guiding his movements before he came. He choked out something that was meant to be a warning, but still held Harry’s head close, felt how tightly he was pulling at his hair, felt Harry’s tongue on him, moving where Harry couldn’t. 

The last thing he remembered clearly was the sound of Harry coughing as Louis let him go, the feel of his sweaty skin as Louis gripped the back of his neck when he finally allowed himself to collapse on the floor. 

Then it all got a bit fuzzy.

.

Louis woke up to the sound of retching. 

He opened his eyes to darkness and an unfamiliar ceiling. There was a disorienting moment when he was sure he’d just slept through his alarm and was late for class, before he remembered that he was a  _ graduate _ now. He had a degree and it was the beginning of summer. He wouldn’t be setting an alarm again for a couple of months. 

He was closing his eyes to go back to sleep when he realised he wasn’t comfortable. As a matter of fact, he was quite sore from sleeping all twisted up in a bed that felt as hard as concrete. 

Then there was the sound of retching again, and Louis actually woke up. 

He pushed himself upright, every muscle protesting the action, and tried to find his bearings. He was inside a bathtub, he realised. There was a bundled up towel where his head had been a moment before, and he was so cold he was shivering. 

Hunched over the toilet was Harry, back bent and heaving. 

His mind still catching up, Louis climbed out of the tub and stumbled the two steps separating him and poor Harry, who clearly couldn’t hold his liquor at all. Louis patted his head and held his hair back, mouth too dry to speak. Harry’d been growing his hair lately, and Louis was able to absently gather a good-sized bun before Harry calmed down. Louis flushed the toilet with one hand, trying not to think of the smell lest he sicked up, too, and then peered down at him. Harry was resting his forehead on the toilet lid, a sad sight. He was shivering, too, his top thin and sticking to him with sweat. 

Louis wondered if he’d slept in the tub with him before he looked to the side and saw another bundled up towel on the floor, right over a fluffy blue bath mat. 

They truly were a sorry duo, Harry and him. Who left their own party to go to sleep in the bathroom? He wasn’t even sure what time it was. He patted Harry’s shoulder. 

“Come on,” he rasped out, and helped Harry, whose head was still hanging low, his hair hiding his face, up. Louis just hoped he didn’t throw up again. He waited while Harry guzzled some water straight from the tap, and then urged him again, “Come on.”

Slowly, he guided Harry upstairs. It was early morning, Louis could tell. The house was quiet and the light coming from outside was grey and dim, as if the sun was just starting to think about rising. He could see the remnants of the party all over the house, could hear people snoring in the sitting room. They shuffled up the stairs and down the corridor to Louis’ room in silence — Louis’ temples were starting to pound and he wanted to be in bed and asleep before he could really start to hurt. 

His door was locked, and it took him a few seconds to remember why. He went to look for the key in his pocket and frowned to himself when he realised his fly was open, the elastic waistband of his underwear twisted inwards. He fixed it absentmindedly, digging for the key with his other hand. 

Inside, his room was dark, the blinds shut tight. Louis let Harry in and closed the door as softly as he could, kicking his shoes off while he did. Behind him, he heard Harry flop onto the bed and he turned to find him rolling himself into a burrito with his blankets. 

“There better be no sick on those clothes,” Louis mumbled, though he couldn’t bring himself to care much. Harry’s boots were on the floor next to the bed, and that was already more than he could ask for at the moment. He plopped down next to Harry and crowded close for warmth. 

By the time Harry was dragging him under the covers, Louis was already drifting off again.

.

The next time Louis woke up, he did so with a start. He was covered in sweat, and his stomach was rolling unpleasantly, but it wasn't the hangover — it was the memories that had come flooding in as soon as he’d started to gain consciousness a second before. Memories of kissing Harry, touching him all over. Of Harry’s spit-slick mouth sliding around his cock and bringing him off while the party still went on just outside the door. Memories of talking, mumbling things he couldn't remember into Harry’s ear as he held him down against the cold bathroom floor, of Harry going pliant and soft for him, probably drunk out of his mind. 

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. 

Next to him, Harry was still nestled among blankets and pillows, breathing softly. Louis didn't dare look at him. He wasn’t sure what he’d see. His head felt like it was splitting open, and there was a horrible taste in his mouth. His body ached like he’d taken a beating the night before, he— He needed water. 

He scrambled out of bed, feeling disgusting in his clothes from the night before. Without looking back, Louis stumbled out of the room and down the corridor towards the upstairs bathroom. He was momentarily distracted by the state of it. His housemates seemed to have gone through the cabinets for their things, and it felt eerily empty without the collection of makeup that was usually cramping the counter and the piles of towels on the shelf over the toilet. The sight just added to the surrealness of the whole situation. 

He’d had sex with Harry. He’d had  _ sex _ with  _ Harry.  _ Harry who had a fucking boyfriend, although… they’d broken up. That’s what Harry’d said the night before. So, he’d had sex with Harry, who was on the rebound, apparently.

Fuck.

Louis wasn’t a stranger to one night stands. He’d been in this situation before, where he’d drunk too much and ended up falling in bed with someone he shouldn’t. It could be a little awkward, but it’d never felt as awful as it did now. He  _ never _ got black-out drunk. He just didn’t. He could remember the night before up to a certain point and then it got patchy and confusing and it was terrifying. What if Harry didn’t remember anything? How had they even ended up kissing in the first place?

Harry had grown up a lot since they’d been in school, of course. He was a proper adult, more sure of himself than he’d ever been, happier than Louis had ever seen him. Louis, though, still felt a weird sense of responsibility for him. The same feeling he used to get if he heard someone making fun of him, or if he saw him doing something he wasn't supposed to around town. Louis had always been the older one who called the shots and Harry had always trusted him. Now, though. Now Louis couldn’t take the image of Harry’s big fucking doe eyes looking up at him from between his legs. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d sucked Louis like he’d done it a million times before, how he’d let Louis touch him afterwards, both of them clumsy and uncoordinated but still so fucking hungry for it. 

Harry was his best friend. Louis had never slept with anyone he loved as much as he loved him, as sad as that sounded. He’d never been afraid that having sex with someone might ruin his relationship forever, yet here he was, afraid of what would happen when Harry woke up.

He scrubbed his face before cupping his hands under the tap and gulping down enough water to make him feel more or less normal. He was parched, and there was a sick feeling swimming in his stomach. He checked his reflection in the mirror and he looked just about as sick as he felt, which was appropriate.

He cleaned his teeth and used the toilet and then there wasn’t much else to do but to go back to his room and face Harry, as much as he wanted to go back into the tub and stay there for the rest of the week. 

On a normal day, people would have knocked on the bathroom door at least twice if Louis was in it for as long as he was. There would be voices coming up from the kitchen and the front room, there would be the sound of the telly, or music coming from one of the bedrooms. With most of his housemates presumably already on the road, Louis felt very small walking down the corridor back to his room. He hoped Harry would still want to stay the week with him, and then felt guilty for thinking that. 

If Harry was in any way uncomfortable, Louis wanted him to go. 

Taking a fortifying breath, Louis inched open the door. The room was still dark, so he went inside quickly and closed the door behind him so as not to let in any light. If he was careful, maybe he could still delay this for a couple more hours. He’d just check that Harry was sleeping and then go downstairs to hide for a little while. It sounded like a great idea — maybe someone was still around to distract him for a bit. 

Heart going at double time in his chest, Louis tip-toed towards the bed. He could see the mound of blankets Harry was lying beneath, but he couldn’t hear him. One of his feet was sticking out of the bed, sock still on, and any other time Louis would have grabbed Harry’s leg and tickled him awake. Now, he thought it’d be better if he kept his hands to himself. 

Harry was too still not to be sleeping. He’d probably be passed out all day, considering how wasted he’d been the night before. As he walked closer, Louis couldn’t decide if he wanted Harry to remember or not, wasn’t sure which option made him feel worse. 

When he was finally standing over Harry, Louis looked down at his face. He was resting on a pillow, eyes closed and brow furrowed. He looked pale. Louis didn’t have time to decide how he felt looking at him before Harry’s eyes blinked open and Louis’ stomach dropped. 

He opened his mouth, then closed it. He rubbed his hands together as Harry started at him, eyes bloodshot and face puffy from sleep. Neither of them said a word for at least twenty seconds before Louis couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Hey,” he sighed. “Feeling alright?”

“No,” Harry croaked and Louis’ hands started sweating. “I think something’s died in my mouth.”

Louis let out a weak laugh. 

“That’s what happens when you don’t know how to play cards,” he said. Harry groaned and hid his face in his pillow. Louis’ pillow. The pillow, whatever. 

“You cheated,” he mumbled. 

“I’ve never cheated at cards in my life,” Louis laughed again, a little more genuine this time. It was just like Harry to start accusing Louis of cheating at a children’s game the second he opened his eyes. 

“That’s a huge lie,” Harry said, turning towards Louis again and smiling. He still looked like death warmed over and sounded like he’d smoked a pack a day since the day he was born, but he was smiling and bantering and Louis wanted to let himself drop to the floor in relief. 

He sat on the carpet next to the bed so they were eye to eye. 

“Haz,” he said. Harry’s face changed instantly. The smile disappeared and his gaze sharpened, though Louis couldn't read his expression. “What happened last night?”

“What? What do you mean?” There was no way Harry didn’t remember, he was as transparent as he’d ever been. Louis’ heart was pounding in his chest and Louis rubbed a hand over it, doing everything he could not to look away. 

“I mean,” he said. “I mean did I do anything you didn’t want? Did I—”

“No,” Harry cut him off. “I wanted— You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Like a punctured balloon, Louis deflated. He dropped his head in his hands with a long groan, elbows on his knees, and felt all the tension leave his body. Thank God. 

“It wasn’t my first drink, you know,” Harry muttered, and he had the gall to sound a little offended. Louis laughed into his palms. 

“Oh, I know,” he said. 

“And I kissed  _ you,”  _ Harry went on, and then quickly added, “Because you kept trying to play boyfriends.”

“I was protecting your virtue,” Louis defended himself and smiled when he heard Harry snort. 

“A good job you did of that.”

Louis laughed, bent over in half, nose nearly touching the floor. He was so relieved he almost forgot how much he hurt all over, and then whimpered when his back twinged. 

“I’m too old to sleep in bathtubs,” he said. 

“Try the floor next time. People kept trying to walk over me to use the toilet.”

Sore as he was, Louis laughed hard at that, imagining a disgruntled Harry trying to kick drunk people away from the loo all night. He wondered if anyone had gotten a photo of it, and made a mental note to check online later, when the thought of looking at a screen didn’t make him nauseous. 

Still smiling, Louis looked up at Harry on his bed, and found him already looking back at him.

“Hey,” he said. 

“Hey,” Harry said back. 

It didn’t feel weird at all.

.

That day, they didn’t do much. Neither of them felt up to anything too strenuous, so they mostly stayed in Louis’ dark bedroom, talking quietly and napping until they got too hungry and ventured downstairs to the kitchen. It was around two in the morning when Harry prepared his first meal of the week: two bowls of cereal and a banana for himself. 

He insisted on setting everything up, since he’d promised he’d be in charge of their food during his stay and had guaranteed quality, and Louis indulged him. He didn’t mind being waited on, he  _ had _ just reached an important milestone in his life, and besides, Harry was all for it. He even set up cloth napkins for them to place on their laps, he was having fun. 

Their internal clocks were a little off, so Louis wasn’t sure what time it was when they started kissing again, but it was somewhere between finding  _ The Sound of Music _ was on in one of the three channels they got at the house and Harry going to the kitchen cupboards and making a grocery list as long as his arm. 

It didn’t feel as strange as Louis would have thought. It almost felt natural, like every bit of banter they did  _ had _ to be punctuated by a kiss. They’d already been touchy-feely before, this wasn’t much different. 

They slept in Louis’ bed again that night, and in the morning they got each other off before they’d even fully woken up, neither saying a word. During the day, they finally got around to cleaning up the party debris. Harry was like a machine, cleaning, washing, checking that Louis was doing his part and then asking him what he wanted for lunch. It was like they were in a play, like they were still pretending for the guy who’d wanted to bring Harry drinks on Saturday night. 

When they walked outside, they held hands. Harry seemed thrilled to be doing it. He squeezed Louis’ fingers and kept his eyes mostly down, but Louis could see him biting down on a smile. They weren’t in a small town where everyone knew who they were. They were anonymous in a city Harry didn’t know that well, and it was clear that walking hand in hand with Louis where people could see them meant something to him. 

Harry didn’t let Louis go even when they were back in the house. And when Louis tried to detach himself, he pouted in such a way Louis had to kiss him again. He had to. And Harry let him as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. As if Louis had always done the same. 

They talked about their sisters and about Harry’s trips. Louis talked about his students, even though Harry’d heard all about them before, and Harry showed him all of his new tattoos, even though Louis had seen them in photos in all the stages of healing. They talked cuddled together on the couch, or while Harry cooked and Louis pretended to help. 

It was like playing house, only it felt a lot more real than playing in their childhood bedrooms had ever felt. It was easy to get lost in the illusion when they had a giant house to themselves, when everyone they knew was miles away, when they could go out and pretend to be whoever they wanted. It was easy to forget that kissing a mate goodnight wasn’t something Louis had ever done before. Neither was calling them sweet names and trying to memorise the way they sounded when they came. 

If Louis was going to do those things with any mate, though, he wasn’t surprised it was with Harry. Harry was the only one of his friends Louis could imagine himself doing something like this with. Not that he needed to imagine anything — for the entire week, Louis felt like he was living inside someone’s corny domestic fantasy, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to leave.

-

Of course, it couldn’t last long. 

The week went by quickly. With no responsibilities and no real plans, the days ended up blending together. Louis measured time in the mornings he woke up with a mouthful of curls and and a knee uncomfortably high against his crotch. He started looking forward to opening his eyes just to find out who had woken up first, which he realised was sappy as fuck but no one needed to know but himself. He lost count of the amount of rom-coms they watched at all hours of the day and he couldn’t even rely on his usual schedule to keep him alert, because when the following Sunday rolled around, the laundry went untouched and Louis hardly realised what day it was. Clothing was not something they’d spent the week keeping track of. 

They were sitting at the kitchen table, trying to find old classmates on Facebook for a laugh. Louis was still riding high on accomplishment and pride and was enjoying seeing people he’d felt less than while growing up who were still in school, or were already parents. Harry insisted there was nothing wrong with that, but still enabled Louis by finding person after person for him. 

“I wouldn’t mind having a family right now,” Harry said at one point and Louis gave him an incredulous look. 

“You’re twenty,” he pointed out, and when Harry’s face fell a little, he added, “Think of your figure, Harry. Babies and six-packs don’t go together.”

Harry laughed. 

“I’d give up my figure to pop out a couple of babies,” he said, the cheeky shit, and Louis had to chase him to pinch at his belly and kiss the giggles out of his mouth. 

“Lewis,” Harry chastised him when he was cornered against the kitchen counter, Louis blanketing his body with his own. 

“God, don't call me that,” Louis mumbled as he dragged his lips across Harry’s jaw. It had sharpened as Harry grew older, no longer padded by baby fat. 

“Remember when you—” Louis put his hand over Harry’s mouth.

“Yeah, I remember, but I'd rather not think about what an embarrassing twat I used to be right this second, please.”

Harry plucked Louis’ hand away, eyes wide. “You weren’t embarrassing,” he said.

“Oh, I was,” Louis smiled and replaced his hand with his lips, kissing all of Harry’s protests and silly defences of Louis’ character away. 

That was pretty much how Niall found them — snogging against the kitchen counter in their pants. 

Harry saw him first, since he was facing the door. He froze against Louis, his grip tightening on Louis’ waist before he pulled away. When Louis looked at him, his face was flushed dark with embarrassment, and when Louis checked over his shoulder to see what was going on, he felt Harry move away. 

“Um,” said Niall, halfway through the door. “Sorry about that.”

It took Louis’ brain a moment to kick back into gear. He absently wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he came back to himself, suddenly aware of what he looked like. This sort of behaviour was not allowed in common areas, not even when the house was empty, but Louis was leaving soon and they’d only been kissing a little. Nothing had been defiled. 

Well, other than Harry. 

“Hey, mate,” Louis said, trying to sound less shaken than he felt. It felt strange to have someone bursting their bubble so suddenly. “You’re back early?”

“Not really,” Niall laughed. “I’m a couple hours late.”

“Oh.” Louis wasn’t sure what time it was. He looked towards Harry and found him sitting back at the table, looking mortified. Louis held back a smirk. “Well, welcome back.”

“Right, thanks.” Niall looked between them, a bewildered smile on his face, before he shrugged to himself. “I’m taking a shower. Can we order in for dinner? I’ve been craving KFC.”

Again, Louis looked towards Harry, who’d been happy to be in charge of their meals all week and, barring one small incident when they forgot the stove was on, they had all been successful. Harry was not looking at him — his eyes were fixed on his hands in front of him, ears still pink. 

“Sure,” Louis replied, and Niall grinned and disappeared down the corridor and up the stairs. 

Louis turned towards Harry. Something was off. He knew Harry still had moments when he was uncomfortable about being obvious. It wasn’t always easy for him to be open about this particular aspect of his life, and Louis understood, he did, but Harry was not closed off with him. 

Every time Harry had come out to someone, Louis had heard about it. He’d told Louis all about every single time until it had, apparently, stopped being such a novelty. He was out to all of Louis’ friends, Niall included, and even though he didn't go around kissing blokes in front of crowds, he wasn’t shy. He’d never been shy. 

This clearly wasn’t about Harry being embarrassed. 

“So,” Louis said, trying to break the ice. “KFC?”

“I should go,” Harry said, and Louis stopped short. 

“What? Why?”

“I was only staying while you were by yourself.”

“Niall’s not kicking you out,” Louis argued.

”No, I know. I just— I should call Gabe anyway.”

“Who the—” Oh. His ex. “Why do you need to call him?”

“I was going to stop by.”

“Why? You’ve broken up, haven’t you?” he said, starting to get angry as well as confused. Harry could do better.

“Um, no? We haven’t.” 

Louis’ stomach swooped uncomfortably.

“What d’you mean you haven’t? You said you fought.” Had Louis imagined that? He’d been drunk, but he remembered asking, more than once. 

“Yeah, we fought. We didn’t—”

“I thought you broke up, Harry,” Louis cut him off, voice rising. He couldn’t fucking believe what he was hearing. Harry didn’t even look embarrassed anymore, he looked as confused as Louis felt. 

“I never said that.”

Something clicked in Louis’ head, and a sick feeling rose up his chest. 

“So you cheated on him? With  _ me?”  _

“No!” Harry yelped, standing up so fast his chair nearly toppled backwards. “It’s not like that.”

“How is it then?”

“We’re not like that. We’re not, um, exclusive.”

Louis threw his arms out. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“He has a girlfriend. Because he’s not, you know. Out.”

“That doesn’t mean he needs a girlfriend.” Louis’ mind was reeling. “He cheats on her with you, then? You’re okay with that?”

“I can’t force him to—”

“That’s not what I mean, Harry. Why are you even with someone like that?” 

“Not everyone’s like you, Lou.”

“Like what?” Louis snapped. 

“Like, not everyone’s known about themselves all their lives and, and not everyone has friends like you do. That don’t care.”

“There’s nothing to  _ care,” _ Louis said, voice clipped. “And you do have friends like that.”

“They’re  _ your _ friends.”

Louis rolled his eyes. All of a sudden, the week they’d spent together felt tainted. Harry’d had a boyfriend all along. A boyfriend who went around shagging boys behind his girlfriend’s back. Shagging  _ Harry _ behind his girlfriend’s back. 

“I can’t fucking believe you.”

“They are,” Harry said, starting to sound desperate. “They’re nice to me because they like  _ you.” _

Louis ignored him.

“I can’t believe you dragged me into, into your mess because you’re too scared to find someone—”

“I didn’t drag you anywhere!” Harry yelled and they were officially in screaming argument territory now. Wonderful. “And there’s no mess, Louis. We both agreed—”

“Did she agree?” Louis yelled back, louder, and Harry snapped his mouth shut. “It’s fucking shitty what you’re doing, Harry. At least admit that.”

Harry opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then started crying. It wouldn’t have been an argument with Harry if he didn’t, and as much as Louis wanted to be annoyed with him, he couldn’t stay standing all the way across the room when Harry was upset. He never could.

“Don’t cry,” Louis said, trying to sound cold but feeling the words warming up on the way out. “I just— I don’t think it’s fair to the girl. Don’t you agree?”

Harry nodded, head down and hands trying to wipe endless tears away. It wasn’t even his usual messy, blubbery crying — it was quiet and pitiful and Louis’ resolve broke a little bit more. 

He didn’t think Harry was naive, that wasn’t the right word. Louis just thought he was too used to being treated a certain way by certain people, and doing certain things without thinking too much about them. 

Louis had taken a psychology course for school, he knew what he was talking about. He had a degree and everything, though it was of little use to him right now when he had no idea what to say to make Harry feel better.

“At least you’re upset,” he settled with, and Harry gave him a hurt look. Louis backtracked. “I mean, you care. About the girl. You know it’s wrong.”

“I  _ don’t _ know it’s wrong. I don’t see—” He groaned, rubbing a frustrated hand across his face. “A lot of people need to hide.”

“You don’t, and I only care about you in this scenario, not him, so.”

“I do have to hide. A little, at least,” Harry said. 

Louis wanted to argue that he didn’t  _ have _ to do anything. He chose to, and that was okay, but there wasn’t a rule anywhere that said that Harry needed to hurt in order to spare his dad’s feelings. 

But Louis knew that this was all a lot simpler seen from outside, and that he could talk all day if he wanted to, but some things were too deeply ingrained to be reached so easily. His degree did help him be certain of that. 

So instead of fighting, Louis went over and gave Harry a hug, fully prepared to be pushed away. Harry melted into him instead, nuzzling into Louis’ neck. The fact that they’d done the same thing fully naked not that long before didn’t make it feel different at all from the millions of times they’d done it over the years, and Louis was glad.

And when Harry decided to stay and have KFC with him and Niall after all, Louis was glad of that as well.


	7. (Not So) Casual Sex and (Not) Being in Love

When he was twenty, Harry got really drunk at Louis’ graduation party and they ended up snogging for a big chunk of the night. One thing had led to another, and Harry had found himself on his knees in a dark loo, mouth around Louis’ cock and so hard in his jeans it hurt everytime he moved. He remembered Louis’ hand in his hair holding him in place. He remembered swallowing, which made him balk at his own recklessness later when the memory floated back up, and then he remembered Louis pinning him down against the cold floor and bringing him off. Years later, Harry still wasn’t sure if it had been Louis’ voice or his hand that had done it, but the result had been the same either way — he'd writhed and moaned and come in his pants, and then he’d passed out on the floor. 

The next day, Harry had woken up drooling on a bathmat and covered with a towel, Louis nowhere to be seen. He’d had a second to recall the night before, a flood of worry and shame washing over him, but his biggest concern had been the way his stomach was lurching dangerously, and by the time Louis had emerged from the tub to hold his hair back while he vomited, Harry had forgotten there had been anything amiss. 

He lost count of the amount of times they had sex the week that followed. 

.

For his twenty-first birthday, Harry’s mum gave him her old car. It was a bit beat up, they’d had it since before Harry was born, but it ran okay, and it was perfect to commute two towns over everyday for work. His stepdad had gotten him a job at a construction site, and that year, Harry helped build little houses for a project in a village smaller than his own. He mostly laid bricks, but he learned how to use a cement mixer and about insulation and that protection gear was there for a reason,  _ especially _ the boots.

Sometimes, he went to visit Louis down in Manchester. Every time he did, Louis would say something along the lines of, “Those are some nice shoulders on you, Mr Architect,” and they would always, somehow, end up in bed together. 

Ever since the first time, no more than a couple of months went by before Harry found himself drawn Louis’ way for some reason or other. He never visited with the explicit intention of ending up underneath him again, but he always, always did (except, that is, for the times he ended up on top). 

.

When he was twenty-two, Harry moved in with Gemma. She’d been living in Manchester longer than Louis had, had a good job that allowed her to rent a two bedroom flat, perfect for her little brother to live in while he figured out what to do with his life. 

While he did, Harry worked in a bookshop, in two different charity shops, in a pub, and as a cleaning person in the school where Louis taught Year 5. 

Sometimes, if they caught each other on their way out, they would drive home together. And most times, they would snog in the parked car for a little while before going inside to Gemma or one of Louis’ flatmates. 

They never talked about it, and Harry was fine with it. After the mess he’d made of the first time they were together, Harry never initiated anything with Louis if he was seeing someone, no matter how casual or nonexclusive or whatever the relationship was. He never needed to ask if Louis was single because, when he wasn’t, Louis’ entire demeanour changed towards him. He was still friendly, still invited Harry over, they could still talk to each other like they always did, but he never touched Harry at all. When Louis was seeing someone, it was as if there was an invisible barrier between them, and if Louis didn’t want to cross it, Harry wouldn’t either. He was happy to spend time together in any way Louis would have him, he’d always been the best person Harry knew. Just because he was always secretly — and very selfishly — wishing Louis would put his hand on his shoulder didn’t mean Harry couldn’t control himself. 

.

At one point, though, Louis stopped putting his guard up around Harry so often. Weeks and weeks would pass and Harry would still be allowed to sling his arm around him, and Louis would still pull him in to speak into Harry’s ear and drop little kisses against his skin once he was close enough. They would go out clubbing and dance only with each other, hang off each other’s necks and shake their heads at anyone who tried to approach them. 

Before Harry knew it, months had passed without Louis starting to see anyone else, and it made Harry feel a guilty sort of joy. 

Since he could remember, he’d always gotten extremely attached to the things he liked, and while Louis wasn’t a  _ thing, _ Harry liked him very, very much. 

.

Harry woke up with the sun on his face. He didn’t open his eyes right away, still too sleepy, but the light burned through his eyelids and pulled him from sleep little by little, making him groan and pull the covers over his head. He didn’t last long — it was too warm and there wasn’t enough air — and soon enough he was forced to emerge and face the day. 

He poked his head out scowling. Whatever time it was, it was too early. 

Squinting up at the ceiling, he stretched before flopping his left arm back, groping around the mattress until he came to the sad conclusion that he was alone. It took great effort for him to sit up, and then he had to rest for a moment, hunched over his lap, dozing until he felt strong enough to get up. 

Harry used to be a morning person, back when he was a student. Even after he finished school, he would still get up before nine even on weekends, never wanting to waste the day away sleeping. Of course, working nights had changed that, and now he couldn’t believe he’d ever willingly gotten out of bed before noon when he didn’t absolutely had to. 

Sometimes he missed mornings, especially when he could be sharing them with someone, but at least he had days like this one to look forward to, when no one had any reason to be awake at all until they got too hungry or their bladders got too full. 

Waking up alone on a Saturday felt like a betrayal, but his brain was still buffering, so Harry didn’t feel too upset about it. He slid onto the floor with a sigh and shuffled his way into the bathroom, tripping twice on the clothes scattered on the floor and waking up a bit more each time. He didn’t bother closing the door all the way while he had a wee, yawing so hard his jaw cracked. He washed his hands and his face, cleaned his teeth, and by the time he was walking into the front room, he felt more like a real person, if only slightly. 

He was expecting to be alone, so he stopped short when he glanced into the living room on his way to the kitchen and saw the top of a messy head of hair peeking up from the back of the sofa. Smiling, Harry changed course. 

He didn’t try to climb over the back of the couch because he still felt uncoordinated with sleep and he didn’t want to start the day with an injury, so he went around it and climbed onto the free side, curling up as best he could and resting his head on Louis’ lap. A second later, there were fingers in his hair. 

Maybe he hadn’t been robbed of the perfect morning after all. 

He shifted until he was comfortable, and when he looked up, Louis was gazing down at him. He was still rumpled with sleep, which meant he probably hadn’t been up for long — he felt warm as if he’d only just moved from bed to the sofa, and while Harry would have preferred to wake up together for a change, this was lovely, too. 

Louis played with his curls, combing his fingers from the roots down to the ends. He always seemed amazed at how long Harry’s hair had gotten over the last couple of years. He liked to touch it, braid it, pull on it. Harry just liked the attention, and he tilted his head up whenever Louis slowed, silently begging for more. 

“Sleep well?” Louis asked after a moment, his hand moving from Harry’s head to his cheek. His fingers were soft stroking his skin, and Harry’s eyes closed without his permission. 

“Mmh,” Harry hummed. 

“That a yes?”

“Yes,” Harry said, voice rough. 

“Good,” Louis said, and then his hand was gone. Harry opened his eyes. Louis was looking at the papers he was holding against the arm of the couch, probably tests that needed grading. He looked serious and focused, handsome even upside down and fresh out of bed. Harry turned to the side to nuzzle against his belly, until he was rewarded with scritches against his scalp that made his arms erupt in goose pimples.

He would have fallen back asleep if it hadn’t been by the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. It kept him awake, internally debating whether it was worth it to disentangle himself from Louis to get himself a cup or if he could wait. 

In the end, Louis made the decision for him. He gave Harry’s head one lat pat and then Harry felt his thigh tensing under his cheek, so he moved out of the way so Louis could stand. 

“Let’s get some breakfast,” he said, and Harry pushed himself up and followed him quietly. 

Louis was usually out of the house by seven every morning, when Harry had only been asleep for around four hours on a regular night. It wasn’t every day that they got to sit across from each other and have breakfast together, and maybe that was why it was one of Harry’s favourite things to do. He would usually brew the coffee himself, since Louis normally had tea, but today Louis had apparently beat him to it. 

“Have a sit,” Louis said, and Harry instantly swivelled towards the table instead of the counter. He watched as Louis poured two cups, added milk to his, and then brought them over along with a packet of milk bread buns. Harry was a bit confused, but he took the proffered mug with a smile — he wasn’t against being a little pampered. Sagging in his chair, he took a sip. 

He didn’t mind working nights, mostly because he knew it was temporary. Job hunting was already stressful enough, especially when his previous experience was so… colourful, and he was just happy he had steady work that allowed him to be self sufficient while he looked for something better. Being tired all the time, though, he wasn’t a fan of. 

Across from him, Louis drank his coffee, slumped back in his own chair. As Harry watched him, he noticed he didn’t look as if he’d had a good night’s sleep, which was strange, since he’d been dead to the world when Harry’d slipped into bed the night before. Harry’d been extra careful not to jostle him as he snuggled back against his chest before he conked out. There were bags under Louis’ eyes, and his mouth was turned down at the corners. When he noticed Harry staring, though, he smiled. 

“What?” he asked, tearing into a bun and popping a bit into his mouth. 

“You look tired,” Harry said. “What time is it?”

“Around ten,” Louis said, and then, out of nowhere, “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

Harry stilled, mug halfway up to his lips. 

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“No.”

Harry was still too groggy to know what else to say. 

Moving to London had been a decision he made long before Louis told him he’d been transferred to a school there. Harry had been thinking about it for months, but he’d had no real incentive to go ahead with it until Louis dropped the news. After that, it had been hard to keep ignoring all the benefits of moving to a larger city. There were more job opportunities, more options for classes or courses to take, and  _ Louis _ would be there, a pretty big incentive. Harry barely had to think about it before he was starting to look at flat listings. 

He had been living in Manchester with Gemma for over a year by then, and lately they had been starting to run a little thin and all their old habits had started to pop up again. At one point, Harry had realised they’d fallen into a pattern: they would bicker, give each other the cold shoulder for a few days, and then one of them would eat the other’s food as revenge (or something equally petty), which always resulted in another fight. As funny as it was to see his sister acting like a ten-year-old when he made her angry, Harry didn’t love turning into a pouty child himself whenever they had a disagreement, so the move had come at the right time. 

It wasn’t about Louis at all, but just in case, Harry made the trip a few weeks before him, just so Louis wouldn’t feel like Harry was following him across the country or anything crazy like that. He rented a room in a shared house, found a job as a host in a posh restaurant near Victoria Station, and started making friends. 

It was strange to think he’d ever had trouble finding people to hang out with. It was hard sometimes to reconcile his teen self with his current self — he hadn’t noticed himself growing up. He could tell he had by how easy he found it to say hi to his new co-workers and strike up conversations. He could tell because he cared very little about what they thought of him and he didn’t feel like he had to please them in order for them to let him be part of the group. It was something Harry loved about meeting new people in new places, one of the things he’d loved the most about travelling around after he finished sixth form: he didn’t feel like he owed anyone anything. 

It was like playing a character, except the character Harry played was a lot closer to who he thought he really was, and the Harry he was around most of the people he’d known forever was the fake one. Or the outdated one. The one that wasn’t completely real. It used to seem silly until Louis told him he’d felt the same way when he’d first moved out. 

Talking with him always reassured Harry that he wasn’t as odd as he thought. 

By the time Louis had made his way down to London in late spring, Harry had a solid group of people he thought he could have become good friends with if it hadn’t been for his schedule from hell. 

He had rotating days off (though never on Fridays or Saturdays) and he usually worked inconsistent hours, from six to whatever time they decided to close each day. Then, after closing the doors, he needed to add a couple extra hours of cleaning up, dividing the tips and clocking out, and so Harry was usually never home earlier than three in the morning. Every time he had to wait for the bus in the middle of the night he thought of Harry Potter getting in that scary night coach in one of the films, and wished his bus would be as fast and reliable as that one. 

Instead, it seemed as if night buses in London drove at half their usual speed, and Harry fell asleep in his seat five times out of ten, always missing his stop by several blocks and having to walk back to his street. 

Louis, though, had found a flat only a few blocks south of Harry’s work, and so sometimes when he finished particularly late, Harry went over.

Louis never seemed to mind. He always looked pleased when Harry walked through the door after work (if he was awake), and when Harry started talking about his day, he never looked annoyed or like he wanted Harry to shut up, and that was more than Harry could say about some of his actual housemates. 

It was the first time one of them lived on his own, the first time they didn’t have to dodge flatmates or Gemma everytime they wanted to be alone together. It was fun and both enjoyed taking advantage of the privacy, but they never really talked about Harry spending the night way too often. Harry wanted to keep it that way. 

Averting his eyes, Harry gulped down his mouthful of coffee and waited. 

They didn’t live together but, sometimes, Harry kinda forgot to go back to his place for a few days too many. The night before had actually been the first time he’d come over after giving Louis a week’s respite from his company — he wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong. 

“Um,” Harry said when they’d been quiet for too long, “should I not have come?”

“No, you know you can come over whenever you want,” Louis replied, but he didn’t sound as sure as Harry would have wanted him to. He put his cup down on the table and watched Louis do the same. “You’ve got a key and everything,” he added weakly. 

Suddenly, Harry was sure Louis was about for his key back. 

Harry knew he could be a little intense. He’d always been the same, that was something no amount of growing up had changed. When Harry liked something, he always went all in, and since he liked Louis quite a lot, he tried to be careful.

Louis’ flat wasn’t very big, but despite what his sister said, Harry didn’t take up much space when he didn’t want to. He had his own drawer and a couple hangers in Louis’ wardrobe (kind of like a side effect of him staying over so often) but he always made sure he did the washing in his own house before too much laundry could accumulate at Louis’. He checked that the fridge and the kitchen cupboards were well stocked up and he cleaned up after himself so that Louis never had anything to complain about. 

Basically, he did everything he could so that Louis wouldn’t have a reason to look at him like he was doing that morning in the kitchen. Harry wasn’t sure what he’d do if Louis suddenly didn’t want him around, but deep down Harry had known Louis would eventually realise their situation was a bit weird. 

He’d hoped he would have more time. 

Harry didn’t use to think much about stuff like love and marriage until he realised he was gay. Not in a hopeful way, at least. The thought alone used to make him anxious, which he used to think had to do with having his parents as the closest example of a long-term relationship during, like, formative years. It’s what Louis had said when Harry brought it up, and it made sense — they hadn’t been a happy couple. But he eventually came to the conclusion that it didn’t sound so scary to look forward to some things when he pictured himself with the right person. It had been a relief to know he wasn’t as screwed up as he’d thought.

When he pictured himself in the future now, he could see all that he wanted for himself, but he still couldn’t see how he’d get there. He knew he wanted to be with someone he got along with, someone he had things in common with, who was handsome and loved him and made him feel good. He wanted to be with someone he could see himself loving for the rest of his life. It was something he’d never given much consideration to before, until he spent a whole week alone with Louis after his graduation. 

It had taken Harry a long time after that to realise that all those things he wanted for his future boiled down to recreating what he’d felt for the first time during that week. And it’d taken until he stayed over at Louis for the first time after he moved to London (the both of them alone, no one to distract them from each other) to realise that  _ Louis _ was a huge part of why that week had been so special. It hadn’t been just about playing a fantasy where he was with someone who wasn’t against holding hands in public. It had been about holding Louis’ hand, and how he’d always felt doing so was special, even when he was a kid. 

Harry used to think he’d been in love before. He’d thought he loved all the girlfriends he’d had and all the girls he’d kissed, but then his world had sort of turned on its head and it turned out he hadn’t. Not in the way he’d thought he did. 

And then Harry had thought he was in love with his first boyfriend, who said he loved him but made Harry feel dirty doing so. He’d thought love was the only reason he would allow himself to be someone’s secret, but it turned out he’d just been lonely, and he’d been eager and stupid. 

Every time he had sex with someone, Harry thought he could come to love the person he was with. Every time he touched someone he felt like he loved them inside and out, like their touch was changing him, and his was changing them. He fell in love with his friends, and with strangers with nice smiles, and with hookups all alike. Sometimes it felt like he was just impatient to give love away, the need hot within him until it faded as fast as it’d come, barely leaving a mark behind.

With Louis, though, the need never seemed to disappear. It had come alive the first time they’d touched each other, and Harry had felt it grow stronger every time since.

“Maybe you need to start texting me before you come over, though,” Louis said, looking uncomfortable.

“Okay,” Harry said slowly, a sick feeling rolling in his stomach.

“I mean, there should be boundaries and stuff,” Louis went on. “You wouldn't want to walk in on anything, right?”

“Anything like what?” Harry asked before he could think better of it. He knew what Louis meant, he didn’t need it spelled out. They hadn’t had  _ boundaries _ in ages. Louis hadn’t dated anyone in months, Harry hadn’t even thought of doing it himself in longer, and if Louis was bringing it up now it was probably because Harry was now in danger of walking in on him fucking someone else if he didn’t text in advance. 

The coffee felt like lead in his stomach all of a sudden. Across from him, Louis rested his elbows on the table and rubbed at his face. Harry waited. 

“I, um,” Louis said, “I have a date tonight.”

Harry said nothing. 

“So maybe, maybe you shouldn't stop by tonight.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Harry lied quickly, trying to sound normal, but Louis was looking at him a little too sharply. “Who?”

“What?”

“Who with. Your date.”

“Someone from work is setting me up,” Louis said. “They’d been on about it for a while, so. I figured there’s nothing to lose.” 

It felt pointed, the last comment, but it was probably all in Harry’s head. Louis had only been working in the new school for a half a year, it made sense that he would go along with his new co-workers’ ideas to fit in. 

“I just— I don’t want it to be awkward if you show up. He’d probably get the wrong idea.”

“You’re bringing him over?” Harry asked, every word coming out of Louis’ mouth hurting a tiny bit more.

“Maybe. It might not go well,” Louis said with a small, tentative smile, and Harry had to shut down the part of him that wished it would go horribly before Louis could see it written all over his face. 

“Have you met him before?” 

“Yeah,” Louis said and Harry’s shoulder dropped before he could tell himself not to be too obvious. Louis didn’t need him putting a damper on his love life just because he couldn’t stand the idea of him having one. 

“Okay,” Harry nodded quickly and got on his feet, his mostly full mug forgotten on the table. “I should go.”

“I’m not saying you have to go  _ now,” _ Louis told him, getting up as well.

“No, I have to. I’ve got to run some errands.”

“You don’t have to run errands.”

“I have to wash my uniform for tonight.” It was true, but it was also the sort of thing he usually did at Louis’. 

“Harry, I’m not kicking you out.”

“I’m not saying you are.”

Harry just needed to be by himself for a bit. He needed to get used to the fact that he would be sharing Louis again, after months of having him all to himself, and that he wouldn’t be allowed to touch anymore. Harry was a very tactile person — he needed time to adjust. 

“I just need to go.”

“Alright,” Louis said. He looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but if Harry stayed, he’d just get sad. It was better for everyone if he had a moment to compose himself. He could even walk home instead of taking the bus. A couple of hours in the cold would clear his head. 

Harry went back to the bedroom to look for his clothes. He picked up his uniform from the floor where he’d left it the night before before crawling into bed, and he went into the wardrobe to look for something clean to put on. He considered stealing one of Louis’ sweaters, but he thought it’d be too pathetic if Louis caught him, so he didn’t. 

His disappointment felt like a giant lump in his throat. He wasn’t going to cry, but he was suddenly reminded of the feeling that used to come over him when he was little and he had a tantrum. He remembered feeling like he was too small to contain every emotion bubbling up inside him, and that was a lot like he was feeling now. Like he better go before he burst. 

He got changed and then stuffed his uniform in the rucksack he’d left by the bedroom door. He checked that his phone was there as well, slung it over his shoulder and took a breath. 

Back in the kitchen, Louis was still standing by the table. He looked troubled, and while Harry wanted to reassure him that he’d done nothing wrong, some of his too big feelings were starting to leak out, and he was afraid of what he would sound like if he spoke. 

Instead, he smiled, waved from the doorway and left. He heard Louis calling after him but ignored it. It was fine. He would call Louis the following day (late, when his date was sure to have gone home already) and they would talk like they usually did. They would go back to normal, to being regular friends, which was already a lot more than Harry had ever thought they’d be once one of them left town. The fact that they were still close at all after all the time they’d known each other was mind-boggling to him. If he thought about it, Harry didn’t need more. After all, it made complete sense that Louis wouldn’t want to be with him — he’d made his point about what he’d thought about secrets and lies enough times. He wanted someone who could be honest and open, and Harry hadn’t spoken to his dad in two years.

Harry wasn’t the sort of person Louis wanted for the long term. 

Outside, it was a cold as Harry had predicted. He’d nearly frozen his ears off the night before, but it didn’t deter him from his plan of walking home. It wasn’t a short trip, but the time alone would clear his mind. Besides, he could always end up taking a new way and finding new streets he hadn’t discovered yet. That would cheer him up. 

Harry loved trying new things. He could see himself moving to the farthest place on Earth and finding beauty in it. He could see himself taking a million courses on everything, from crocheting, to computer programming, to plumbing. He felt like he would be able to adapt in any work space; he’d already worked in so many different places he felt like there was nothing he wasn’t ready for. 

He was up for almost anything, even though he was a bit directionless. Harry didn’t know for certain where he wanted to live, what he wanted to study, or what he wanted to do for a living.

But what he  _ did _ know (and of course he was going to spend his entire walk obsessing) was that he wanted Louis in his life. 

Louis had been there for every major event Harry had lived through. He’d been the only person who didn’t treat him like a baby when they were kids, who’d been his friend when no one would be. He’d let Harry cry on him over scraped knees, and over all the shit with his dad, and over having to say scary things out loud for the first time. 

He wasn’t sure where or what he would have been if Louis hadn’t been there since Harry could remember, smiling at him from across the fence, laughing when Harry tried to return the football that had landed in his garden, though never in a mean way. 

Harry hadn’t even started caring about what he  _ looked _ like until he started noticing what  _ Louis _ looked like. Before that, it had always been about  _ not _ looking a certain way. Then Louis had gone off to uni and started dressing nice, and Harry wanted to be more like that. He’d always wanted to be more like Louis, and where he couldn’t, he wanted Louis close so that he could at least soak up some of the warmth. He was the person who had started Harry thinking about finding his way in life, just so he could be someone Louis could rely on, too. 

So, if Louis didn’t want Harry the same way Harry did, he’d take the alternative. He’d be his friend with the invisible wall keeping them apart and he would be happy about it. He’d spent enough time ignoring his feelings and pretending they were something else, he would just have to keep doing it. 

He couldn’t believe he was walking home nearly in tears when just a little while ago, he’d been curled up on the couch and Louis had been playing with his hair. He’d stroked Harry’s cheek, and looked at him like he did sometimes before he said something sappy. Tomorrow, there would be someone else curled up on the couch with him. In a year, Louis could be engaged. Harry would be best man (obviously) and he would have to give a speech about what a wonderful couple Louis and his stupid husband who wasn’t him were. 

Harry would probably get too drunk and cry under a table, he could already tell. He would pine for the rest of his life and he would die a spinster. Maybe he’d get a cat — he’d always loved cats. He’d get a cat and be godfather to all of Louis’ beautiful children. Fuck, Harry didn’t even use to think about children until Louis had shown him a drawing one of his students had made for him. He’d looked so pleased Harry had spent the rest of the day daydreaming about them hanging up their own imaginary kids’ drawings on their imaginary fridge. 

That had been years ago. Aware or not, Harry had been gone long before they first slept together. Even after they started having sex, Harry didn’t let himself take it seriously for a long time. Despite what everyone said, Harry  _ could _ be relaxed about stuff. He could enjoy things the normal amount. 

Except he really couldn’t. It just wasn’t in his nature to be aloof. When he cared, he cared hard, he was hopeless like that. 

The wind stung his cheeks as he stood in a corner, waiting to cross the street. He hadn’t brought a jacket with him the night before, so he buried his hands in his trouser pockets and hunched in on himself, trying to fend off the cold. He wondered if Louis’ new boyfriend would care as much as Harry. Probably not. 

The light turned green, and Harry stood in place. 

He probably wouldn’t care as much, Louis’ future husband. Harry didn’t think it was physically possible to care about anyone as much as he did Louis — except maybe their mums, but that was different. If Louis was going to be with someone, he deserved to be cared for hard. As hard as it was humanly possible, and Harry was good at that. 

Caring was the thing Harry did best; it was why he couldn’t make up his mind about what to go to school for — there was just so much to choose from. There was only one Louis, though, and turning around wasn’t so much of a choice as it was a given. 

He’d never really been someone who didn’t try to pursue what he wanted.

He nearly ran all the way back to Louis’ building. He dropped his keys twice trying to unlock the door downstairs, and then clambered his way up the stairs instead of waiting for the lift. By the time he reached the third floor, there was a stitch on his side, but he didn’t let himself stop. He strode up to Louis’ door, fumbled the keys one more time, and then he was inside. 

The living room was empty, Louis’ ungraded tests still resting on the arm of the couch. Harry dumped his rucksack on the floor and went into the kitchen.

Louis was sitting at the table, already looking Harry’s way. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he looked like he’d been running his hands through his hair. Harry spoke before he could lose his courage. 

“I don’t want you to go on a date.”

Louis’ eyebrows jumped up his forehead. 

“What?”

“I don’t want you to go on a date,” Harry said again, a whine slipping into his voice. He tried to pull himself together. “Why can’t you— Why can’t we—”

“Harry,” Louis sighed. 

“Lou, you’re my best mate. I… You know I, you know that I love you,” Harry got out in an exhale, face burning. He’d never said ‘I love you’ to anyone who he wasn’t related to before. 

“I love you, too,” Louis said and Harry couldn’t hold in a smile, even if he knew Louis didn’t mean it the same way he did. “But you can’t tell me not to date.”

“I’m not saying that,” Harry argued. “I just don’t want you to date people, um, who aren’t me.”

“You don’t mean that.” 

“Yes, I do.”

“Harry,” Louis said, giving him a knowing look that still managed to seem sad. “You get obsessed, mate.” 

“What’s wrong with that?”

Louis rolled his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“You’ll get over me as soon as we go on one date,” he said. Harry frowned. 

“Me? Get over you?”

“You go through phases, you’ll get really into something for a while and when you’re over it it’s like it never happened.”

“That’s not true, _ ” _ Harry said. He could feel his temper rising. 

“Harry,” Louis said. 

“Louis,” Harry said back in the same exasperated tone. “If I obsess, then I’ve been obsessed with you for over twenty years, I guess. I think I’ve lost hope I’ll  _ ever _ get over you.”

“You know what I mean, Harry.” 

“Is it because I haven’t come out to my dad yet?”

Louis looked taken aback, stunned into silence for a split second before he seemed to absorb Harry’s words. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he said, slamming his hand on the table. He looked honestly bewildered, but Harry barrelled on. 

“Because I will, for you.” He would. He’d do anything to make Louis happy, even if it was terrifying.

“Harry, that’s—” Louis’ voice went soft. “No. You shouldn’t have to come out because of anyone. You should do it because you’re ready and you want to.”

“But I want to.”

“No, you think  _ I _ want you to.” 

“Do you?” 

Instead of replying, Louis only looked at him in silence. Harry wanted to fidget under the scrutiny, but he held his ground. 

“I just want you to do whatever makes you happy,” Louis finally said, and Harry’s heart swelled in his chest. 

“I want you to be happy, too,” he gushed, too earnest and embarrassing, but he was way past caring. “But like, with me.”

Louis spluttered out a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand before he sobered up. 

“Wow, Harry,” he said, deadpan.

“I don’t want you to go on a date, Lou,” Harry said for the third time. 

“I heard you before.”

“I know you don’t see me the same way. I know you want to be with someone… different. Than me. But I—”

“Harry, I honestly don’t know what the fuck you’re on about, love.”

“Someone you don’t know as well,” Harry said, trying to put his jumbled thoughts into words. Louis probably thought Harry was nothing but a whiny, cowardly, obsessive baby or something, but Harry could prove him wrong. Or at least, he could try to be less of those things. 

“You think knowing someone too well is a deterrent or…?” 

“I don’t know,” Harry groaned, still standing by the kitchen door, wringing his hands in front of himself. “Maybe if you didn’t like them.”

“You think I don’t like you now?”

“No,” Harry sighed. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I just—”

“Come sit down,” Louis told him and Harry did gratefully. He collapsed on the chair opposite Louis and resisted the urge to bury his face in his arms. He took a moment to regroup, and then looked up. Louis, unsurprisingly, was staring at him. His eyes looked especially blue, still tired or worried or a mix of both. 

Harry had studied Louis’ face for years, since before he realised what he was doing. He used to watch him from across the playground when they were little, and wait until Louis noticed him so he could wave. It was probably Harry’s favourite face in the world. 

“What did I do?” Harrye asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been, um, for a while now. Why’re you suddenly going on a date?” 

“You can’t even say it, Harry,” Louis sighed, and Harry scowled. 

“We’ve been  _ fucking,” _ he said as clearly as he could, and then deflated when Louis smiled, looked accomplished. “And now you want to go out with some  _ stranger—” _

“You said it, though, we’ve been fucking,” Louis spoke over him. “It’s what we do, isn’t it?”

“Why do you want to stop?”

“I didn’t say I did.”

“Then why are you going on a bloody date?”

“Because we’re fucking, Haz. That’s all we’re doing.”

“Because you don’t want to d _—_ _be_ more.”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

Harry gaped, at a loss for words for a moment. He wasn’t sure Louis wasn’t messing with him, and he didn’t feel up to being teased right that second. 

“I just… don’t want to be one of your passing fancies,” Louis finally admitted, sounding as if it had been forced out of him. Harry didn’t know how to reassure him that he was the farthest thing from a  _ passing fancy _ he could be. Harry’d been half in love with him since before he could tie his own shoes, had moved cities twice to live closer to him, was willing to confront his dad if it was something Louis would want him to do. How could Louis not see it written all over his face?

“Lou, I love you,” Harry said quietly, and it wasn’t as scary the second time around. Not when he felt it with all his heart. His hands were shaking a little, so he squeezed them between his thighs. He sniffed, overwhelmed all of a sudden by what this could mean. If Louis rejected him now, there was a big chance their relationship would change forever. “I’ve loved you for too long to call it passing. I’m planning to keep doing it for a long time, too.” 

“Jesus, Harry, don’t cry,” Louis laughed, but it sounded watery, so Harry didn’t bother to blink away the tears gathering in his eyes. “We should be able to go one serious conversation without tears by now.”

Harry smiled. 

“Lou,” he said again, “don’t go on that date.”

Louis reached across the table and Harry hurried to take his hand in both of his, not caring they were damp with sweat. He gripped Louis’ fingers in his, trying desperately to read his expression. 

Louis was a lot better at hiding what he was thinking than Harry had ever been, but there was no hiding the glint in his eye, and Harry felt his entire body flush with relief before Louis could even speak.

“I already called it off when you left,” he said, and Harry pulled on his hand hard, dragging him half across the table just to kiss him as quickly as he could. Amazingly, Louis kissed him back. There was the sound of their mugs toppling over, and the scratching of the table legs on the tiles, but Harry didn’t pay attention to any of it. He gripped Louis as hard as he could, the table edge digging into his thighs, and kissed him and kissed him, would keep kissing him until Louis could see there was no getting rid of him now. 

He remembered plenty of times he had ended up crying in front of Louis over the years, but he thought that this could very well be the first time it was out of happiness. 

Harry hoped it wasn’t the last.


	8. Epilogue

For their third anniversary, Louis gave Harry a house. 

It had been listed as a cottage, but Louis thought that was a little too generous for what it really was. It was a little house in a little town and Louis wanted Harry to love it. 

They drove out early on a Sunday, out of the sleepy city and into dewy fields. Harry slept most of the way, resting against the passenger side window with his arms crossed in front of himself. The whole way, Louis couldn’t stop glancing over at him, nervous energy keeping him alert. They took the A1 and headed north, one of Harry’s playlists playing softly over the rumbling of the car. It was a two hour trip on a regular day, but Louis took nearly three, taking in the view and enjoying the hum of anticipation under his skin. 

Harry didn’t wake up until they were rolling into town. He shifted in his seat with a little groan, and when Louis glanced over, he saw his eyes were open a slit, peering out the window at the rows of colourful houses and quaint little shops lining the pavement. 

Their destination was slightly more rural, though, so they eventually left civilization behind and turned into a dirt path. Louis drove them up and around different country roads, mostly because he wanted Harry to see what Louis had loved the first time he’d visited — the slopped fields covered in wildflowers, the horses grazing in the distance, the trees just starting to turn, their leaves in all shades of red and yellow. 

When they finally stopped in front of the house, Louis felt like he’d driven up and down every existing road in a three kilometer radius. It had been as beautiful as he remembered. 

“Are we the first ones here?” Harry asked, by then sitting up straight and looking through the windshield, trying to spot other cars. When he looked his way, Louis could only grin back. “What?”

“I might have lied,” he admitted and Harry’s forehead furrowed in that way it did sometimes that made Louis want to kiss it. 

“About what?” he asked. 

“Come on.”

They got out of the car, and Louis quickly trotted around the bonnet and reached out to take Harry’s hand. He pulled him towards the house without another word.

It was one story, with a mudroom on the front, three bedrooms and a decent-sized back garden. There were flowers all around it, ivy climbing up one side and a huge sycamore shading the other. It looked like out of a storybook — if you ignored the peeling paint and ancient windowsills — and Louis had to make an effort not to stare at Harry while he took it in.

He gave Harry one more minute to get his fill, and then Louis pushed open the front door and they went inside to explore. 

Lately, he had been thinking a lot about his future. _Their_ future. There was a time, a lifetime ago, when Louis hadn’t been able to even visualize what his life would look like a year down the line, the pressure of making a decision as big as what to go to school for paralysing. These days, it didn’t take much effort to see himself growing old with Harry. 

They walked around the empty rooms, checking into cupboards and closets, opening taps and flicking light switches. When they reached the back door, Louis steeled himself. 

This was why he’d chosen the place. 

As a kid, Louis had hardly been able to wait to get out of their village. Most people did, sooner or later, staying in a place like that for one more day than absolutely necessary was unthinkable. As an adult, with a career and a partner he adored and a plan that extended further than a couple of months (or even years), Louis wanted a bit of his childhood back. If they were going to be a family, he wanted his kids to have all that Louis found magical about growing up, even if, once upon a time, he’d been eager to escape. 

The back door opened to green. It wasn’t as vast and seemingly endless as the scenery they’d grown up with, but it was still gorgeous. It was a place with possibilities, and space, and a rundown fence on either side that extended all the way down to a wooded area on the far end of the property. 

He squeezed Harry’s hand and waited until he spoke. 

“This isn’t your boss’ house, is it?” he eventually asked, still looking out. 

“No.”

Harry turned to him. His eyes were wide and as green as the grass outside. 

“There’s a lemon tree,” Louis said. “And there’s space for a plot. And enough flowers to last you a couple of years.” Harry had started revisiting his gardening skills in the last couple of months. His whole face was lit up. 

“Louis,” he said softly, “did you buy this place?”

“Not yet,” Louis said. “It’s more of a two-person kinda deal.”

“Lou,” Harry started, and then cut himself off to plant a wet kiss on Louis’ lips before dragging him back into the house to walk through it again. 

Of course Louis hadn’t bought the house, but he had gone to an interview in the local school. He’d calculated driving times to their mum’s and to Manchester and London, the two cities where their sisters had scattered around. He’d drawn up an offer for the owner, but it wasn’t something he could do on his own. Big decisions hadn’t concerned only him in a while. 

“There’s room for a porch out here, like you used to have,” Harry said when they made their way back out onto the garden.

“And a playset,” Louis dared, and Harry smiled wider, looking out towards where the land ended. Louis couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Guess I’d have to have a talk with my dad, then,” he said after a few minutes, quiet around them like it could only be in the countryside — nothing but the sound of the wind for miles. “Co-owning a house is not the same as being flatmates, let alone having kids who can use that playset of yours.”

Feeling his chest clench the same way it did every time Harry mentioned his father, Louis pulled him closer. He put his arm around Harry’s waist and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. 

“Whatever talk you want to have, you know you won’t have to do it alone,” he said, and felt Harry snuggle closer. Louis took his hand from his hip and kissed the back of it. “And besides,” he added, “your dad _did_ always say to stick close to me.”

“That’s true,” Harry hummed and inched just a tiny bit closer. “It was the only good advice he ever gave me.”


End file.
